April 15-April 21

Happy Easter Week!  I ended up working on Easter Sunday. I was looking to take off the following Thursday to travel to Michigan to pick up Scott. He was busy wrapping up his last projects, papers and exams of his winter term. He would be busy taking his finals the week after Easter, and then would be done that Thursday. He had to be out of the dorm on Friday.

So my usual Easter plans with a big dinner and Easter mass were a bit off. Instead, we decided to have friends over for a big dinner on Saturday. I had bought a huge prime rib roast for Tom the week before, so we decided to pull it out of the freezer and put it on the grill for a wonderful dinner Saturday night. I was glad I put the roast in the freezer the week before because I discovered that Tom had plugged the freezer into the furnace, but he turned the furnace off that week. And it cut the power to the freezer! I had to run an extension cord to plug it in. I was a bit concerned that it had blown a fuse during a severe thunderstorm in which Allison and I had hunkered down in the basement for the night. Cookie gets too upset during tstorms and whines all night, so we pulled open the couch so we could all get some sleep. Tom was out of town that week so Cookie had noone to keep her company during the night(Tom is usually up late/early and playing video games or working on school work on his computer in the basement office). Anyway, I was glad to hear that the brand new freezer was just fine and only needed to be plugged into another outlet!

So we made a big dinner and had our friends Beth and Barry over with their sweet dog, Ripley. We also had our friend John come over for dinner.  We have been trying to get everyone over for months, but something always seems to come out(or someone gets sick!). We also would have had our neighbors, Dan and Gloria over for dinner, but Gloria is still working in Naples Florida, and Dan had traveled to Ohio to visit family. He had stopped by to wish Tom a Happy Birthday, but Tom was off to Rhode Island during the week for a quick work trip.    And sadly he informed me that their son dropped out of Grad school in Delaware. He decided the type of work in Environmental Legislation was just not for him. Although he currently does not have a back up plan. And Gloria went back to work primarily to help him out with the cost of Grad school. We are very happy that Allison is enjoying her work at Northrop, and Scott is very excited about the engineering program at Western. Except he is also looking forward to coming home.

So Easter Sunday Allison and I both went to the sunrise service at church(a first for us!). It was a nice, uncrowded mass. We both went to church early so we could both work that day and take off Sunday. We stopped for a quick breakfast at Einstein bagel and then changed clothes at home. I went off to work at the Rehab center and Allison was able to work from home.  But first we all dug into our Easter baskets! I did not make Tom and Allison search for their baskets this year. No time. They were both very pleased with their goodies. Tom gets a low carb basket, and Allison enjoys some dark chocolate treats along with a few healthy snacks to take to Frisbee practice. Scott would have to wait for his Easter basket when he returned home. I managed to get off work early enough to pick up Mom B Sunday afternoon and bring her back to our house for a late Easter dinner. Tom had put in a ham, and we had plenty of side dishes left over from our big meal on Saturday. So we enjoyed our dinner Sunday night before I took Mom B back to her apartment after giving her an Easter basket.

I had picked her up Friday evening as well to get her hair done, as well as mine. I wanted to get highlights and a hair cut, so we both went in since the hairdresser was closed on Easter Sunday. Afterwards I made our last Friday night fish dinner-I tried a new recipe out for salmon. Mom had cheese pizza since she is not a big fan of salmon. I was glad that I was able to get my shopping done on Thursday night after work. It gave me more time to spend with Mom since I will be gone the next two weekends.

Allison also had a special event during the week. She was invited to the Girl Scout Distinguished Women's reception as a former participant. The reception recognizes 5 women in management positions in the Baltimore area and they each host a specially chosen Girl Scout for a day at work. Allison spent the day with the owner of the Baltimore Chemical Company, Jeannette Partlow when she was in high school. She even did her college internship at the Chemical Company and has been good friends with Jeannette ever since. She was happy that Jeannette was also able to attend the event. Usually they hold the reception at a local Country Club, but this year it was moved to one of the hotels in the harbor. Allison said they invited too many people and did not even have enough chairs or tables for all the guests. But she said the food was wonderful and so was the view. And Jeannette gifted her a signed book on Leadership written by one of the national GS leaders who is currently in her 90s and still very active in scouts in New York. Allison is hoping to travel to New York with Jeannette for a luncheon to meet her, although we did get to hear her speak at the National Convention in Houston about 6 years ago when Allison and I attended as delegates. Allison really enjoyed the evening and was amazed at how many people she actually knows on the Girl Scout Board and that know her!