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Monday, April 17, 2006

We're Back

We got home Friday from a week-long visit to Don's parents in West Virginia - me, three kids, and a dog. Don couldn't go because he couldn't miss handbell practice on Wednesday, but I wanted to see his parents and the kids were out of school.

We had a wonderful time. Don's parents are amazingly considerate, thoughtful, kind, loving, generous, and fun - a lot like my parents, just in a much quieter way. The kids and the dog did great on the trip. We left at 4:30 a.m. so they would sleep for the first leg of the 10-12 hour drive. On the way up, no such luck. Even the pup was unhappy in his travel kennel, yelping and whining until we finally took him out. From then on, he sat in laps and was happy as a clam.

We also discovered he's a water dog. My father-in-law has a lovely pond with a man-made stream going down to it across the far end of their yard. He and the kids cleaned all the leaves out of the pond and stream and turned the water in the stream on. Donovan went for several swims in the pond and rolled like a balloon in the stream, drenching as much of his body as he possibly could.

While there, we visited a Exhibition Coal Mine. I'll tell you more about that another day. We also had dinner at Red Lobster ("Shrimp Scampi, Dane, there's your shrimp scampi") which we can only do when Don's not with us since he's highly allergic to seafood and swells up just from walking though the door. We also went to Pizza Hut and I cooked out hamburgers on their huge, wonderful gas grill one night.

The trip home was great. Everyone slept except, of course, the driver. Even Donovan was quiet in his travel kennel. We were almost half-way home before the children roused, but the puppy was still sleeping so we ate in the van instead of stopping for breakfast. All-in-all, it was a wonderful time.

Hope you all had a great week. Happy Easter.

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