The Croup Attack Surprise Party

Sweet Maya had a bad cold the week leading up to Easter, and finally on Good Friday, I took her to the doctor.  She had a virus coupled with the croup cough, but thankfully, her croup didn't involve wheezing or difficulty breathing.

So after our morning doctor visit, we went to gymnastics and then spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for Uncle Alex and Aunt Coady to arrive, with Collin shouting for them to hurry up and get here when he realized I was on the phone with Grammy.  They barely had time to set down their luggage before Collin was strongly encouraging them to get their bathing suits on and go for a swim.

Though the pool was still a very cold 71-degrees, their thick blood from this Indiana winter withstood the frigid water.  Alex trying out the slide -

Collin racing Coady.  Bless his heart, we have to get him in swimming lessons; he tears up the water but barely moves -

Collin went down the slide with Aunt Coady -

Big splash -

Blue lips with Daddy before we convinced him to get out -

After the swim, more family came over for a surprise party for Aunt Debbie.  My cousin, Jasper, had organized, decorated, and brought the food.  Our only job was to get my aunt over to our home a little after 6pm.  Then Jasper called to say that her mom was about to go on a walk so we needed to get her over to our house now or we'd be waiting a long time to say "surprise."

So Cas called with a worried voice to say that Maya had the croup and was having trouble breathing so I was taking her to the ER.  We felt terrible for the lie.  In our defense, my aunt was hosting a dinner for 40 the following night plus hosting several overnight guests, so we knew if it wasn't a really good reason, she'd tell us she'd come over later.  So my wonderful Aunt Debbie who has truly come to our rescue so many times - when Bruno was having seizures and Cas was out of town, when I went in to labor with Maya, when I got stuck without a car at an offsite work meeting and was going to miss pick-up at Collin's school - thought she was coming to our rescue again.  Throwing on clothes to take Collin to a park, she arrived at our house in minutes and was totally shocked by the friends and family shouting surprise, especially considering her birthday was almost 4 weeks away!

We had a great time with family, eating pizza and cake, and celebrating our selfless, loving and fun Aunt Debbie!

We saw Collin when he was scarfing down pizza and cake, but the rest of the night he was playing with Uncle Bobby, Jackson, and Uncle Alex and Aunt Coady.  Tumbling and wresting with Alex, who he'd call "chump" and Alex would talk trash back, calling him "Palooka"

 Collin saw this picture on the computer and said "I destroyed him to the ground."

It was a great start to an awesome Passover and Easter weekend.