Well, we finally got everything straightened around, work schedules covered, and we're off Friday morning to Ohio (to see my family) for Easter and for the boys Spring Break (they don’t ever have a whole week here, it’s just a long weekend…where days disappear if we have snow days…crazy). I’ve decided since I’m not on a Dr’s. pre-op diet (just my own self imposed one) that I can swing being around the family without telling them about my surgery. I’m taking some of my shakes and I’ll just tell them I’m doing Atkins again…2 of them have been on Atkins before with me, and several of them are doing Weight Watchers now, again. I’m probably either the ‘lighter’ one/same as my 4 siblings, so it’s going to be hard not talking about something that has to do with weight loss, but like I've said, I don't want to have to defend my decision now or talk about it all the time, and the timing is bad with the graduations.

I just realized I need to get my act together because, other than candy, I don’t have a thing for the baskets yet. If you weren’t around for my Christmas festivities, let me explain that holidays are a huge deal in my family…and Easter for my Catholic family is a biggie. There will be several trips to church, eating of fish, caravans to people’s homes for lots of meals including Easter brunch and Easter dinner. Then there are the Easter bunny things. Not only does everyone (my Mom still insists on doing these for the adults too...yes, even my 43 yr. old bachelor brother still comes over for his basket hunt...you're still a kid when you go home) have to hunt in the grandparent’s house for their basket, but then there are several egg hunts. As the teens have gotten older we’ve increased the number of eggs (but not the total amount of candy) they have to find (or it would be all over in minutes). We’re up to 60-80 eggs for each and they each get their own room…they still love doing it. Then a little while later we do an easier hunt for the little ones. The Easter baskets are filled with goodies and little gifts and I’ve just realized I’ve forgotten to start collecting things for these…yikes!! All that shopping for LB stuff got me sidetracked from life…how dare I think about myself first (I have the Catholic guilt too). DD’s BF is coming with us, so I’ll have an extra basket to make for him now…my Mom has set the standard and turned this into a monster LOL…I’ll be making up baskets when I’m 90 for my kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids. At least with the LB I will have a chance to live that long!

I’m off to stuff several hundred plastic eggs, finish the laundry and start packing. Tomorrow is a busy one, routine blood work for DS1 and drive him to school (1/2 hr. away), my abdominal ultrasound (for the incontinence Dr., not LB), afternoon at the pre-op class (3 hrs.), and then pick up DD over at college (4 hrs.). I’ll try to let you know about the pre-op class before we leave town (and I’ll take the laptop, but my parents don’t have wireless, so who knows) so if I’m not back…have a great weekend all!

You are sounding like superwoman...I was going to go grocery shopping and maybe buy and fill some of those plastic eggs for my DD's lunch bag tomorrow, then maybe lay out a little for my Vitamin D problem!

I really cant wait til tomorrow's appt but not looking forward to the drive. The mapquest says 3.5 hours but LA traffic can double it! Oh well.

Well your blog made me laugh because of those pictures...and our big dog Quinn. He's basically a retriever and I guess we dont have a lot of Easter experience since we are (slacker version ) Jewish. But when the DD was about five, it was kind of springy in ND so we decided to hide 'Passover' eggs in our yard. We got up early and hid them all over the back yard and then later when the DD woke up and was dressed to go out one of us happened to look out the window right before letting her out! Panic! The DD (darling dog) had brough all the eggs back into a neat pile on the patio!!

Years later in Fresno I was laying ut in the sun by the pool and the same DD (damn dog) brought me something kind of grayish in his mouth...I told him to drop it when he turned to the side and I saw the long pink tail! Well by the end of the day he had brought us three baby possums just like in your picture...and they all seemed to think he was Mama! He's very gentle and I could tell by their wet and 'peaked up like merengue' fur that he had been lovingly licking them! We put them in a box under a tree at night and the real Mama came and got them....

Anyway your blog made me think maybe I should hide some eggs in the yard for HIM! He would probably love it! I don't dought they make dog ones at Petco but I think I could make my own!

Well I'll be waiting for the post preop report tomorrow...if you have time! Good luck! I'll prob send you a PM as to how mine goes, I guess I should have done that for all this stuff!

Doggie egg hunt! Great idea! Hope your meeting went well. Have a great weekend! We're off!