spring (break) fever

well, this past week has been spring break for gil house rock. it started out pretty rough with ezra still being sick and a somewhat surreal incident here on campus. i was on call the first weekend of spring break, and after being up all night from 1am-5am giving students unlock codes to their rooms (lovely), i spent the majority of saturday handling what initially promised to be a benign water leak/small flood. in my attempt to locate where the water was coming from, i had to enter four apartments, upon which i located a 75-lb. Siberian husky dog, a box of condoms, alcohol, marijuana, and pornography! small issue turned into BIG problems! so after that tornado of weekend activity subsided, i could finally settle in, try to forget about all the mischief, and enjoy the rest of my spring break. here are some highlights:

SHOP-TIL-YA-DROP:

despite battling the stomach bug, we decided to take ezra to some local children's outlets to get out of the house. we found some amazing deals! as my friend christy encouraged, "run don't walk" to your nearest children's place outlet where they are practically giving away clothes for pennies on the dollar! here is a sample of our finds:

(8 sets of jammies, 2 sweatshirts, sweatpants, a sweater, a shirt, hat, scarf, and mittens - retail price of $170 ... we only paid $40!) this just thrilled my bargain shopping heart to no end.

HOME-COOK'N:

i tried some new recipes over the break and found a few new favs from my latest H&G magazine. this turkey breast tenderloin with pears, spinach, and blue cheese was as good as it looks and so easy to make, too!

A TASTE OF HOME:

i was so excited to finally hang our bedroom curtains, some family photos, and the special paintings i made for ezra's room. the images i painted are similar to the ones in his baby quilt hanging on the wall. they now hang over his crib, and he just loves the bright colors!

FUN WITH OUR LIL MAN:

the best part of all was having undistracted (read - NO CLASSWORK!) time with my lil fella. we went on a long bike ride to the park with our friends christy and brooks, played, ran errands, read books, checked out the local children's museum, you name it! here he is in his recently installed new car seat! such a big boy!

having fun at the children's museum making music:

other noteworthy items - i stayed up til 2:30 in the morning one night creating a beautiful photo book of the day ezra was born on shutterfly. i also spent a day on a personal retreat at my former pastor's guest cottage. the day was incredibly refreshing - filled with prayer, meditation, observing nature, journaling, and reading Scripture. pampering continued when my good friend beth and i went to get spa pedicures (a belated valentine's from both of our hubbies).

i have been so grateful for this week at home, but now i find myself wondering with so many grad school deadlines approaching, "does it all have to start again???"