Immediately (and I'm being serious here - I do mean immediately) after the last kid got picked up, we packed the kids in the van and headed south to Mom and Dad's house for a long weekend. We arrived at roughly 4:55pm - exactly 55 minutes after the party ended - now that is some efficient use of time! That night we went out to eat and then headed to bed to get ready for our next adventure - a Twins game on Thursday! By 10:00am Thursday morning, we (Grandpa Jim, Grandma Donna, Auntie, Ryan, Lauren, Ellie and myself) were boarded on a bus headed to the Twins game against the Colorado Rockies. I was a little worried about how the kids would do with the whole day, but when it was all said and done, they did great! 
There were no major meltdowns, Ellie slept the entire time (other than the two times I woke her to nurse her on the bus ride up and back), and Lauren (our problem child) even managed to sit through the whole game without hitting anyone and even got a cat nap in on the bus ride home - a total and complete success! I had terrible visions of how the day would go, and thankfully none of them happened. Now, I'm not saying I would do it again (let's face it, I didn't really get to enjoy watching the game), but it was a great experience and I'm glad we did it at least once. When we finally got back late Thursday afternoon, everyone was very tired so we planned an early night filled with a quick dinner and some baths. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate. There were thunderstorms and tornado warnings for the majority of the night which meant we had to stay up a little later than planned hunkered down in the basement - so fun! When the skies finally cleared, we got the kids to bed and everyone had a good night of sleep (including me because Ellie slept from 9:30pm to 5:30am)! Now normally I would be excited about this, but the first full night of sleep coupled with some other things going on with her - she was overly sleepy to the point where I had to wake her to feed her (and once awake, she didn't eat very good), and she also had a cough and was very congested - led me to be concerned that something else might be going on with her. So after our morning at the park, I decided to call the nurse's line and get some advice. After speaking with the nurse, she suggested that I bring Ellie in. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't be a big issue, but because we were still in St. Peter, that meant packing her up and driving 45 minutes back home to get in at the clinic - anything for my sick little girl. So off we went (the two older kids stayed with Grandma and Grandpa) to get Ellie checked out. When we got to the clinic, I was expecting a relatively quick appointment where the doctor would tell me that Ellie just had the common cold - unfortunately that didn't happen. We were there for 2 hours having every test possible run on poor little Ellie. The doctor couldn't pinpoint why she was so tired and eating poorly so she decided it was best to run several tests to rule out anything too serious. First up was a catheter to see if Ellie had a urinary tract infection - she didn't. After that we went to get some chest x-rays done (which came back good), and we finished up with a blood draw (which she hated because they had to stick a needle into her arm and basically squeeze the arm to get her tiny little vessels filled with enough blood to do the test - not fun to watch). When all the tests were done, Ellie and I went back to the room and waited. It was about 20 minutes before the doctor came back and said all the tests came back fine - I've never been so happy in my life! By that point I had already prepared myself for terrible news so I was overjoyed when the doctor said she did in fact have a virus of some sort and that it should pass - yay for a simple little virus! We do have to go back in a couple of days to have her blood drawn again just to make sure her white blood cell count is back up where it needs to be, but other than that, nothing too serious. 
It was about 5:30pm when we got back to Grandma and Grandpa's house and when we got there, we were in for another surprise . . . Ryan was jumping off the board by himself and swimming to the edge of the pool - apparently he grew up and got brave in the three hours I was gone! With that, our busy week finally came to an end. It was Friday and the weekend was about to start - let's hope for an uneventful one filled with lots of swimming and relaxing!
Cousins watching the baptism - Lauren not excited to be sitting.
And I had to put this picture in. Typical Lauren . . . got the shades on upside down (and while inside), shoveling cake into her mouth as fast as she can, and just being happy - gotta love it!
With everyone seated, the handing out of the diplomas began. Each child was called to come up and walk across stage to receive their diploma - the teachers even did he traditional hand shake and posed with each kid for a picture - here is Ryan receiving his.
After the diplomas were all handed out, the kids performed some songs, then they finished up by walking out to a song about how the children were our future - it was very fitting. After the ceremony they had ice cream, cake (it said "Congrats Graduates on it and punch. Both Ryan and Lauren enjoyed this part of the event! They was ice cream, sprinkles, and red punch everywhere! When it was finally getting to be time to leave I told Ryan we had to go. He said, "No Mom, I don't want to leave. I never want to forget this night." Awe . . . so cute. Here are some pictures of Ryan with some of his classmates, teachers, and one with Trav (they had matching outfits on that night). 
This last one is Lauren trying to convince Ellie her crib is a fun place to be. It might of worked considering she actually slept in there for four hours last night - yay!