Weekend Away

This past weekend, the kids and I went to Illinois to visit my parents and to give Rob the house to himself so he could finish his first big paper. If I had to imagine a nightmare trip with the kids, the 3 1/2 hours to Pontiac would come pretty close. Fourty-five minutes into the trip, I had to stop to give Anna her pacifier. The boys were both asleep, so I had no help. Stopping woke up the boys so they were awake the rest of the way and periodically asking for things. Ten mintues after the first stop, Matthew had to go potty. We stopped at a rest area and I couldn't convince him to go by himself (STOP being shocked and appalled....Anna had JUST gone back to sleep, I could see inside all the way to the restrooms, and it's a very safe rest stop.) We all trooped in instead and Matthew went, but Ben didn't. He won't go w/o a stepstool, crazy kid. Then, with about an hour to go, we had to stop for juice. The boys have coughs and I couldn't deny the request and had left w/o drinks for them, so we stopped. Then five minutes back on the road, Ben had to go potty. But he wouldn't GO when we stopped. He went in his underwear ten minutes before arriving in Pontiac. :( That night, they proceeded to be as hyper and naughty as I have seen them in a long time and had a rough time settling down for bed. I thought if the whole trip was going to be this way, I would be dead by Sunday. Emotionally, that is.

But God is good. I spent some time on my knees that night and the next day was wonderful. We had a marvelous time with my parents and the boys got to do some fun stuff. Mom gave them a couple of dollars and let them pick out some stuff at the Dollar Tree, took us to lunch at McDonald's, and then let them get some kids' videos at Family Video. We went back home for Anna's nap (and Mommy's) and some rest time for the boys. Oh, they also made sugar cookies with Grandma and decorated them. Well, Matthew mostly helped. Ben kind of made an appearance to decorate his and eat it.

We went to church with Mom and Dad on Sunday and then came home to eat and play for a bit. I was really dreading the trip home, but I prayed for sleepy children and overcast skies. Why overcast? Well, I was tired and I knew if I had the sun shining in my eyes the whole way it would make me more tired. I got both! The kids didn't all wake up until we hit the Wisconsin border, so I only had to make one stop. We had a great time after that (and saw three busloads of soldiers at the rest stop...I think the boys' eyes have finally gone back into their heads!) We went to church first to give Rob a ride home and then crashed as a family that night.

While we were gone, Rob had a rough time with his paper. He ended up switching due dates with one of his classmates who was finished already, so he has an extension on this one, but that puts his two big papers due within three weeks of each other. Just pray that he can get this done!

Rob came home from work today at 3pm. His entire shift was laid off except for him and another guy. He will be going to work at 6am and will bounce back and forth from work to school until 2:30pm almost every day. Some days are less crazy than others, but it's all done in an 8 1/2 hour time span. He'll have more time in the day to work on school work. It is less hours, but we have enough tax money coming that we can make it until he graduates and can work full-time over the summer. God is good, even when our schedules change at the drop of a hat.

So that's the Litwiller household right now. We're hanging in there, by God's grace!