Easter - Baskets and Teenagers too!

Omaha.......

Nothing like 18 hours, 1050 miles, and 15 cds to remind me of why I love the open road and driving! Have I mentioned before that I LOVE road trips? Going way back when it meant freedom...still does to this day. Back in Arizona I would road trip once a month to LA on a Friday night after work. Never once was I scared to drive by myself, nor afraid of getting lost. Add to that the two round-trips from/to Phoenix from WI while moving. LOVED IT. So.... nowadays I try to "invent" reasons for road trips. The latest was our trip to visit my brother in Omaha.

My older sibling (I'm number 2 of 4) JP has lived in Omaha for over ten years (can't remember exactly how long) and recently bought a house with his fiancée and renovated it -- every single inch of it to be exact. No siblings have visited it so we decided to all make the road trip for Easter.

Good Friday was a perfect day for driving. Packed our cooler full of diet cokes, ice, and of course Grande Cheese. I would be murdered if I didn't bring JP a stash of dh's cheese. In fact, due to my lack of thoughtfulness, I had indeed forgot to order JPs favorite -- fresh mozzarella balls. As luck would have it -- dh was walking out of the office on Thursday night and noticed a buddy carrying a tub of such "balls", and kindly asked if he could buy them from him (thank you dh for taking care of my blunder).... and THANK YOU TROY for giving them up. So......cooler was stocked..... CDs were selected.... and the gas tank was full. Off we go.

It took me 30 miles to realize that something was wrong.... terribly wrong. Crap, did I forget something? If so, what? Cooler...check. Suitcases... check. Pillow...check. Shoes...check. Sunglasses...check. Cell phones, camera, chargers...check. What was it? OMG - it was silence. Apparently, DH has FINALLY learned about the "noise factor". For some odd reason on this day he decided not to immediately dive into incessant noise -- rather -- just the opposite. Total silence. WTH? Why oh why couldn't I just enjoy the silence? Why did I have to dig into the "whys"? Me and my big mouth.... so I asked. His reply? I was trying to be nice to you and give you silence. Oh crap - well ok -- here it is... DH officially has earned "good husband points" for the weekend. On a side note, he'll need those extra credit points later in the weekend.

The drive was nice. I don't recall getting the bitchies either. Nope, not me! Not the hunger bitchies...not the sore back bitchies.... not the eebie jeebie bitchies from sitting too long.... nor the getting lost/not listening to me bitchies either. Only one "minor" incident when the "miles to empty" was showing a mere 20 miles to go... I was starting to build up to an outburst - but whew... BP appeared.

Oh yeah.... do you know how hard it is to eat out/on the road on Good Friday? It's bad enough that you can't eat meat, but then since it's a Holy Day of Obligation, that means fasting/IE no snacking in between meals? OMG... this was torture. I have never been hungrier than on these days. Ugh. Luckily that heaven sent BP also had a Subway attached to it... killed two birds. I pretty much inhaled my tuna sub. Nice huh? lol

We arrived at JPs by 3-ish and after the initial hugs/hellos I decided that I MUST have an icy cold Coors Lite. Um... what about Good Friday you ask? Well... um.... technically since it was after 3 pm the Obligations were over? Lame I know Let's just say, I FULLY enjoyed sitting outside on his beautiful deck overlooking his pool/lake and soaking up the sun. His backyard is every Sun Sluts dream come true. We stayed out there until after dark (and 10 beers) and then attempted to begin the family games.

As you know, when my drunken Irish family gets together we tend to be loud, drunk, and play lots of games. Which leads to more loudness, obnoxiousness and at least one fight. Our game of choice for Good Friday? Catch Phrase. Oh goody... let's see who can scream the loudest?!? Let's just say there were plenty of laughs, noise, and spilled wine. Or at least Kate caught the wine glass but not before it sprayed my white shirt with a wonderful Cabernet. Do I even need to mention who won? ha ha.

The rest of the weekend flew by. Other notables was watching "Cape Fear" with the four most scardy-asses ever known to mankind. Nothing like have the four of us (Kate, Carly, Jackie and Me) scream in PERFECT four part harmony. Perfect pitch, tone, and right on the mark. Each and every single time. On the plus side, we were able to wake JP up from a deep sleep only to see him leap up too. This sight of course made us laugh the rest of the weekend. He pulled a total Dad/Grandpa move. The Hansen scares are infamous - but that will have to be another blog.

My sister and I assembled the easter baskets for the kids. Kids? There are no kids. There is an 20, 16, and 14 year old who all pouted about their easter baskets. Nah... the 20 year old nephew didn't -- he just enjoyed annoying his sister and eating her candy when she wasn't looking.

Church was once again a "challenge". My goodness, I'm beginning to believe that I won't ever be able to attend Mass again with any sibling. This time it was a 90 year old Priest who appeared to cry during Eucharistic Prayers, etc. He sounded so "moved" and melodramatic that it sent most of us into peals of pew shaking laughter/tears. Yes... we again had some evil eyes/glares sent our way. The daggers could be felt, but basically bounced off of us as we simply didn't care. Luckily the Mass was a short one and we bolted before too much damage could be done. At least I didn't feel guilty like at Christmas. Laughing at someone's handicap was horrible. Laughing at the melodramatic antics, is something less? of a sin, I suppose???? lol

Easter dinner was quiet and reserved. Actually bordered on polite. WTH? That's a first. Probably because there wasn't a pious drunk telling boring ass stories, nor was there anyone who made the other cry. Heck I don't even recall a single mention of "potty" functions. That is definitely a FIRST. It was a nice dinner.

I suppose I should probably confess to our dirtiest family secret. Here it is: every single conversation ends up with one/some/all of us talking about or emitting potty unmentionables. Every conversation. Once in a while someone challenges (usually a teenager or husband) us to see if we can go a half-hour without potty talk. No mention of pee, poop, vomit, burps, gas, diarrhea -- none of it. No making sounds either. Our record from this weekend was darn near two hours. It was exhausting :)

Oh... and the magic candy that JP had on the coffee table? That my poor unsuspecting niece dove into? She had 2 pieces swallowed before JP announced that it was sugar free/low carb hersey candies, and she will be pooping pretty much non-stop in a short while. Niece was mortified to have THIS information a bit too late. You see, she brought along her boyfriend who probably wasn't aware of the fact that she does poop (remember that stage?). I have to admit it -- the look on her face was hilarious! And yes... she did spend quite a bit of time in the bathroom (ahem)!!!!! Like I said before my family is obsessed with all things bathroom related.

We left early Monday morning for the trek back. We wanted to hit the road early so that we could be back before dark. It rained the entire way and we had more stops to make too. It seemed to take twice as long. Eh... oh well.... the Boss kept us great company as did Elton.

Looking back, we all had a great time and the sun sluts are soooooo ready to invade his house again once that pool is opened.