Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were spent in the company of a sick little boy. Luke had a high fever, chills, and a sore throat. Poor guy was truly miserable! I was able to escape a bit on Tuesday so I could get to class and go to the dentist. I decided to try a dentist close to home. I’ve heard good things about her and her office and I was not disappointed in the least: a paper-less office, state-of-the-art technology, massage-rs in the exam chair. Heaven (well, as heavenly as a dentist gets). And she’s a Christian, to boot.

Friday was when the real fun began. My sweet hubby arranged for my sister to spend the night with the kids while he whisked me away to the Beall Mansion, in Alton, IL, to celebrate my 30th birthday! The owner answered wearing a tuxedo and poured us some champagne to enjoy while he gave us the tour. Personally, I don’t like the fussiness of antiques, but I LOVE history so I really enjoyed learning about the mansion and the furnishings. After dropping our things off in our room, we drove downtown to find dinner. The first place we went to was shoddy. It was a martini bar, but looked like a cafe you’d find in a bowling alley. We went across the street to another martini bar that was much nicer, and the food (and martinis) were great.

We skipped dessert and instead headed back to the Beall where an all-you-can-eat chocolate bar was waiting for us. We took a little bit of everything and enjoyed it in our room. The next morning we were served breakfast in bed: french toast in a praline sauce, danish, hard-boiled eggs, juice, coffee, crackers with a wonderful seafood spread, delicious fruit, a bit of sweet wine, and three perfect chocolate truffles. Mmmmhmmmm. After eating, we packed up, drove around to look at houses, and then we headed home.

Back home we hung out with the boys and then Ben took me to Powell Hall to see the St. Louis Symphony perform Ligeti and Holst. We had a great time! It was a wonderful weekend and the perfect way to celebrate my birthday! I can’t wait to see what he has in store for my 40th!

Monday and Tuesday, were pretty much the usual around here. Monday is always my day to catch up from the weekend and work on Algebra homework.

Wednesday was a lot of fun, we had a play-date here with four mommies and eight kiddos! One friend brought some chocolate-covered red velvet cake balls to tempt us with. They were so good!

Life Group was on Thursday. One couple brought their five-year-old twins so the boys had a blast. Two play-dates in two days!

We had a great time at a trivia night with friends on Friday night! Oh, the junk food. We didn’t even come close to winning, but we had a good time anyway!

Saturday turned out to be a family day, kind of. One brother and his girlfriend met up with us and another brother for lunch at India’s Kitchen on Manchester. They have a buffet for lunch, which is the best way to enjoy Indian food, in my opinion, because you have to try it all. Mmmmm, so good. Then we all came back to our house and played Settlers of Catan. We finished up the evening by watching Couple’s Retreat (note: it’s rated PG-13 but so not kid/teen friendly, I could barely stand it at times).

Today, I finally typed up some emails to get the word out about my other blog, Just1.thecrashpad.com. I’ve been working on this for a while and needed to take the next step and get the word out, but haven’t had time until today. Head on over and check it out!

On Tuesday, I officially started college. Beginning Algebra. I was nervous, but I could tell everyone else was as well. The instructor breezed in and immediately set us at ease. She’s great. You can tell she really enjoys teaching and she’s totally used to people who aren’t, uh, mathematically inclined. She’s also a Christian and mentioned (before class) that she meets with other teachers once a week to pray for her students. Very, very cool. I met two of the women next to me and we chatted a bit. Cool.

Wednesday, I was up early again to get to the dentist for my permanent crown. Of course, my temporary was stubborn and had to be CUT off, but eventually he got it off and cemented the new one in place. It’s a great looking tooth. He replaced my crooked tooth with a straight tooth and brought it in like with my other teeth. Very cool. However, I’m afraid it’s going to effect my bite. Well see how it feels in the coming week.

I was back in Algebra on Thursday. Class went well again and we did some review of fractions, percents and decimals. So no actual algebra yet. We don’t have textbooks, we have MyMathLab instead. I love it. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’ll be studying math every. single. day until this class ends. Just because I need to keep going over and over and over it if I want to get a good grade. And I so want to get a good grade.

After class, I picked up the boys and we headed over to a friend’s house for a playdate. Good times.

On Friday, Ben had to work all day and then head out to a men’s retreat put on by our church. The boys and I went to wile away the evening with another friend…and her 4 kids. Luke and Gabe had a blast and I had a good time, too.

I spent my Saturday morning cleaning up the basement. It was a disaster. Plus, my craft area is in the basement and for my birthday I want Ben to finish that area off. I’ll be sure to take some before and after pictures to post on this site. I’m not doing anything too fancy. I really want to make do with what I have as much as possible and will buy everything else off of Craigslist or the thrift stores. So nothing fancy, but hopefully I’ll end up with a clean, organized and functional space that I’m not embarrassed to invite people into.