March Madness {Of the Non-Baller Variety}

Yeah yeah, I know March was so three weeks ago--this post has actually been sitting around in draft form since then (cringe). But it's been crazy around here so humor me, mmk? Here's what went down...

Little miss made her first reconciliation and blew us away with her bravery. We celebrated with a cake of her choice, which we learned was quite apprapo being that it was also znational Oreo day.

On St. Patrick's day we remembered my grandfather, Jack Dempsey McQuaig, better known as "Champ." He died on St. Patrick's Day when my dad was in college so I never had the privilege of meeting him, but I've gotten to know him better as I've gotten older through stories and pictures and even my own research. Recently, my uncle sent my dad a treasure trove of photos from their childhood and also of my grandfather's service as a navy F6F Hellcats pilot during WWII--it was neat to go through a bunch of them on St. Patrick's day.

Champ...

Later, when frantically trying to figure out what to throw together for our Irish dinner feast (procrastinator that I am), I stumbled upon an Irish potato dish I'd never head over before called champ. It was too awesome of a coincidence not to make in honor of my grandfather. Also fitting was the fact that St. Patrick actually hailed from Scotland, not Ireland, just like my grandfather and the rest of us 'Scotch' McQuaigs.

...and champ.

Spring came early (starting in February)... 

...and then disappeared for the rest of March.

Snuggling his snow.

So we (well, everyone else) embraced it and we went skiing one last time.

This was their first lift ride sitting on their own.
I couldn't even handle the cuteness.

And then everyone (well, 3/5 of us) promptly spiked some fevers that lasted a total of 8 long days, including over Easter. Poor Ethan man was hit hardest.

Easter Sunday lows...

...and medicine highs.

Late in the day Ethan took a field trip to urgent care because his fever kept spiking kinda scary high. But we made it through. And we still dyed (and broke) plenty of eggs, and the Easter bunny still came...

(Peter likes pineapple).

3/5 of us made it to Easter mass...

Hearding...hearding...

And we even remembered to measure Erik on his half birthday.

We do mix n' match (or not match) PJs around these parts.

And finally, to close out the month with a little additional madness...

My faithful, [fully paid off]10-year-old car didn't like the trip back from the mountains too much; the engine light came on as soon as we gunned it to get up the big hill of the first pass, so to the shop it went the next week. 

Providentially, it went to the shop the same day Peter got an offer for the new job/promotion he'd been interviewing for at his current employer. 

Apparently, after learning about the offer, Peter also received a call from the car dealer that my Chariot (as I like to call it) had finally pooped out on something major and it was going to cost more to repair than it was worth. 

I knew none of this until Peter casually rolled up in this puppy and guided me to the front window to take a look at the driveway.

Whereupon I about fell over and muttered something quite unholy before squealing "is it returnable...?"

This is my "holy jeepers, you brought home a new car??!!?!?!?!" look.

(Needless to say, Peter found out that it is best to surprise me with much, much smaller things...say, like a nice bouquet of sunflowers).

BUT I really do love it, and we are lucky to have it. It's exactly what I would've picked out if I had been part of the process--another Expedition. They've been good to us and nicely accommodate our brutish dog/kid/ski-and-camping gear desire for space. And considering the amount of time every day that I spend playing taxi driver for all our various activities, I'm extremely thankful to have a new, reliable family chariot. [Cue song]. Now just to finish reading the manual and figure out all this snazzy new technology...

The job itself will be a nice step up for Peter, even if it means we'll be seeing a bit less of him because it's a bigger region and it's on the other side of town. But he's excited and we're excited for him. 

And that about wraps it up for March Madness...which looks a little less mad now that we've been knee deep in April's foolishness. Wish us luck!