Des Moines Weekend.

My whole family (well, most of us) decided to come to Des Moines to visit my grandma and go to Seder at her temple for Passover last weekend.  We made these plans 5 or 6 weeks ago when my little brother Jon and his partner Caleb booked their tickets from New York. My aunt sent us menus so we could lock in our dinner choices.  Ben and I contemplated buying the kids shoes that aren't filthy and maybe some khaki pants.  And, most of all, I complained.  Basically to anyone who would listen.  That I didn't want to take the kids to temple because they are little heathens who wouldn't know how to behave and would be so embarrassing and don't need nice clothes in any other context so they'd be a waste of money and blah blah blah.

And then my grandma had a stroke.

And Seder at the temple was off the table.  And of course, that's when I realized that it was a table I really did want to be at, actually.

Since we already had hotel rooms and plane tickets and plans to see each other and since we wanted to see my grandma even more than usual (and, I mean, we usually want to see her pretty badly since over half of us live far to far-ish away), we met up in Des Moines anyway and ate pizza for Passover (I KNOW) and visited her in the hospital and talked about her move to a rehab facility and made bad jokes and tried to cheer each other up and ate to much and drank just enough.

These stooges always enjoy a good road trip.

 Seder!  The most relaxed on ever.

 We met up at my grandma's house for dinner and the kids played ball in the backyard with my aunt and my cousin's boyfriend.

 Dorothy's new thing is blowing dandelion fuzz, and it;s pretty cute.

 I love that she wore her heels to the pool

 You know I am addicted to mid-air pool shots.  GET READY FOR SUMMER.

 The kids love it when I get in, which makes me think I should get in more often.

 My brother and Caleb and my parents came with us to the Blank Park Zoo which would have been funner if any of the food places were open because we were HANGRY.

 Jack was holding his breath like a seal.

 LOL

 The merry go round!

 Which Dorothy HATES

 Cooper had a massive fit about not going into the gift shop that was really about being HANGRY

 So we went to the Drake Diner for fatty food (I had a deep fried grilled cheese with mayo) and milkshakes.  Also, Jack has adopted Ben's trick of taking a picture of himself when I ask him to take a picture of me.

 After lunch, we tried to get the 5 cousins in a pic.

 This was the closest we came

 As long as we were right by Drake, we checked out the campus and interrupted my cousin Molly's studying.

 Ben took one for the team and stayed in with the kids to have room service (but Harry and jack ended up having the time of their lives hiking with my aunt and eating at the mall food court where they reported they had Dairy Queen Blizzards in a medium-- they said this really pointedly because I make them get smalls because I am a mean old witch, obvs) and I went out to Noah's a family favorite restaurant and somewhere I always went with my grandma after shows.

 My roommate took advantage of my absence to take up 75% of a king-sized bed.

 She brought her own luggage.

 We came home to baseball, soccer skills training, and another baseball game and then hit the ground running this morning with work, volunteer projects at school, and so much laundry.  The end of the semester if a doozy this year.

This weekend was not the weekend we thought it would be, and it was sad and scary, but I have a great family.  They're all so damn funny.  Thank goodness,  Because, as Truvy says in Steel Magnolias, "Laughter through tears in my favorite emotion.: