The Flu That Ate Easter

So there you are, bopping along, minding your own business. Go to see the Easter Bunny while out shopping, planning to have a nice Easter. And then....

Your son spikes a fever and acts not at all Nickylike. You take him to the ER. The doctor says "We've been seeing a lot of this. He has the flu. It's very contagious. You'll probably all get it too."

Enter high fever, inability to breathe, aches, pains, shakes, congestion, coughing, weakness to the point of tears... well, in short, I barely pulled together the Children's Program and Easter Egg hunt, with lots of help from Nicky (who was feeling better after playing the role of Typhoid Mary). We had spent all week sewing costumes and making giant puppets, so SOMEONE had to do it. Kairi and Scott were too sick to even get out of bed. By Easter morning, I had the worst of it. I sat in my pew in church and just shook and cried with sick and miserable the entire time. I couldn't even make Easter dinner. Kairi and Scott were somewhat better by this time, but it was quite frankly the worst Easter I've ever had.

I only managed to take a single picture of each kid in their Easter outfits. I think they looked cute, although I bet they gave the flu to every kid at church.

The DaVinci Center

When we went to the Star Wars exhibit, we ended up getting a membership at the Franklin Institute because a full year of access cost less than the passes for just the day. Lucky for us, the DaVinci Center in Allentown is reciprocal with the Franklin. The kids and I spent some of our Easter break exploring the exhibits. Nicky loved the weather station, where he could be blue screened into various backgrounds. He also got brave enough to actually touch a starfish - and had me take a picture so that Daddy would believe him.
I'm still not sure why you need goggles to dig for fossils, but it sure looks scientific.
And the highlight for Kairi was seeing this little tropical frog, of course.
The DaVinci center is nowhere near as cool as the Franklin Institute, but hey, hard to argue with free!

Strong In The Force Are We

We had to check out the Star Wars exhibit at the Franklin Institute. We're all Star Wars geeks (some of us geekier than others) and we like the Franklin anyway. It was pretty cool - we got to see real props from the movies, try some hands-on experiments with the science of hovercrafts and droids, and see costumed characters, too. We even had time to run up to the Sports Challenge. It was definitely a fun way to spend a Saturday!

Trading Spaces

Yup, you guessed it - another school project! This time, Kai had to calculate to the third decimal place the exact dimensions of her room and then "purchase" the precise amount of paint and flooring and bedding and furniture and accessories to get her closest to $1000. She came within $.02 - we thought she was exactly there, but there was a calculation error, which we caught before she turned it in. At least she got a 98% on the project! And, she got to decorate it with frogs, which is always a bonus!