Week in Review: Spring Break in Winter's Wake

Happy Friday!  

The rain this week has washed away a lot of the snow, and we can finally see some grass again.  The big guys are all about to start their Spring Break week, with Andrew flying to Arizona for his mission trip tomorrow, and JP and Eamon and Eamon's friend driving home this weekend - yay!  Franciscan held an Irish fest last night, which they were all able to attend.  Eamon (only 19) says he just held the beer for the picture "to look more Irish", as if that kid could look anything but Irish.

Grandpa enlisted Declan and Brendan to help him build a snowman, as Grandpa loves to do:

They also used the bed boxes to pretend to camp outside.  They lasted about five minutes.

Maggie went to Puppy Yoga with some friends, and said it was so cute and fun.  They had Australian Shepherd puppies on this day, and they were on sale for $650 each - I wished we could have taken one home.  But then Lucy Doodle got into the leftover bread and puked four times, and suddenly I was glad to only have one dog.

Swim Season is over!!!  And the angels sang Alleluia.  That season started in September, and included 3 practices every week and five swim meets.  The last swim meet at University of Rhode Island was crazy busy and hot and crowded and God gave me many talents but being a swim mom is not one of them.  We will do anything for our kids though!

Brendan fueling up after the meet

Brendan took home second place in his heat for the 50 Back

What do you do with tons of snow?  Put it into dumptrucks and dump it in the river or a "snow farm" which are vacant lots in the area.  Makes me want to move to Florida!

Thank you for your advice on my last post.  Finances are so stressful and I am trying to find the balance of providing while still balancing family time.  I mean, everyone can always pick up more work to earn more income, but at some point we all decide when enough's enough, and I'm just at that point.  We are looking at our expenses and trying to figure out what's best for our family.  It's just been a month where we found out Declan needs braces (after having been told he would only need a palate expander), the van died unexpectedly (it's a Honda with only 120,000 miles), we got the kids college financial aid letters for next year which are significantly lower than this year, and Maggie found out she doesn't qualify for a great scholarship that Andrew and Eamon had both received because we make $4000 too much.  I've applied for a Professional Judgement for our FAFSA due to the number of children in college, so I'm praying that helps.  With the cost of everything, I feel like how could we possibly earn any less income, even if it would gain us more potentially in aid and scholarships.  Ugh.

Ok enough about that.  I know we are BLESSED in so many ways and our cross has always been a financial one, but that's a cross I would rather carry when there are so many other bigger crosses handed out.

I filed our taxes with TaxAct once again, and you can get 20% off if you use this link.  I filed all my kids taxes (well, the five who work) for free using FreeTaxUSA.com (no affiliate link, I just think it's super easy to use and FREE).

This weekend, Maggie and Xander are headed on a retreat (Maggie is leading and Xander is participating), we have a basketball game for Declan, Stations of the Cross tonight, and then we get to prepare the house and cook for three hungry college boys coming home on Sunday.  I can't wait!  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!