We're going to GERMANY!

To use my friend Janell's expression, "We are choosing to not participate in the recession"

So, there is a website that is called travelzoo and it has some amazing travel deals. It is where we heard about going to Paris when we went a few years ago. I found flights to Greece for only $471 per person round trip, after taxes out of Columbus OH, which is only 2 hours from us. I was really excited about the Greece initially and trying to convince Carl, then I got stressed about it being the right decision and Carl started warming up to the idea. So, I was kinda leaving it to him for the final decision. So after discussing it for hours, Carl decided to go to Greece with all the kids, and so he said "do it", so I did. At first we were thinking of only me, Carl and James would go to Greece, but we weren't sure about that, then we decided we would all go, and stay together, although the girls most likely won't remember it at all, and are going to get whiny and complain that her feet hurt (guess which one). Then as we were on the phone with our Greek Uncle and the tickets were changing. We had to get earlier dates in May, we had to fly out of Columbus (2 hours away) at 6 am not noon and had a 7.5 hour layover in Kennedy not a 2 hour layover. But we were doing it, picked airplane seats, put in credit card and then just before I clicked "purchase and confirm" he said wait, lets go to Germany..... Which I had started to look at earlier in the day. So, we started looking at that and the tickets were less than Greece and we could fly out of Cincinnati! Cincinnati airport is 20 minutes from our house. So, for all 5 tickets we got it for $2200 approximately. Amazing! huh? I am so excited, I can hardly stand it, I started jumping up and down after it was done. OH, a final part of the purchase drama, when I was clicking on the Germany "purchase" button after I had picked seats and put in my cc info, it was supposed to go to a confirmation page and then it said "sorry there was an error on the website"! I was freaking out. It let me go back to the previous page and I tried it again, still an error. But then on the previous page, I noticed that you could call and purchase on the phone, so I did that and it gave me a confirmation number. So, there you go! That is the beginning of our Germany trip adventure.

To all of you blog stalkers out there, yes I am finally going to publish a new post...

The weather in Kentucky has been really nice this past week, we had a couple of cold days but it did hit 70 degrees as well. It was so nice outside, we just sat in the driveway and ate. Carl did an amazing job smoking the pork tenderloin dor dinner tonight, it was seriously the best meat I have ever eaten. We also did dutch oven potatoes that were killer too! We haven't done dutch oven for quite some time, so it was really fun.

Well, tax season is nearly done, and I think the pneumonia that has gone through the house is nearly gone as well. Yes, you hear it pneumonia, during tax season. So, I have gotten behind, but in the last week or so am finally catching up. One thing with being sick during tax season, I have had a lot more time to knit while sitting in line at the pharmacy or at the doctors office waiting. So, I actually bought yarn and a pattern in February when I was there for tax season and I just finished the sweater today. It turned out really nice. James looks quite handsome in it. Here is James playing Harry Pottery in his new sweater.

Carl will be doing his first of three mandatory furlow weeks on April 6, for the week that the kids have spring break. They may end up heading off to Virginia to visit the cousins, we'll see. Carl driving for 7 hours across the country with three kids and no wife to meter it all out? Hmm...

We have been enjoying sushi obsession lately, not the sashimi, but the rolls. We haven't been brave enought to try the sashimi, but we'll see for the future. It is fun to try all the different restaurants around that serve it and find the best ones, and all of the different vareities. We seem to favor the ones that have more vegetables than just fish and rice. I went to a Thai restaurant with a friend last week for lunch and had really great sushi. When I was in Utah for tax season, I think I had sushi four times...the hanabi roll at Windy's Suykiaki in Ogden is really good. So, we have gotten some sushi to bring home and have even let the kids try it. There has been some that they have liked and some not. Even Emma our pickiest eater, has liked some of it. She tried a shrimp roll that she enjoyed. I told her we neede to have a girls lunch out for sushi soon, to curb her momma's cravings.

James and Carl are planning a big backpacking trip in August in the Teton's. Carl is just about jumping out of his skin. He is loving every planning moment. We got James a really nice mountainsmith pack for the trip, and Carl is starting to break him into it. They plan on trying to go out every weekend to do a little hiking so that James is prepared in August. Fritz has really enjoyed going out and hiking as well. Alex's old pack fits him really nice, Fritz is a little smaller than Alex, but it works great. We haven't put the hiking booties on yet, we seriously should have the video camera for that one. It is so funny to see a dog wearing booties for the first time, but it really saves their paws.

We haven't heard anything on the adoption yet, we are still saying our prayers that another child will bless our family.