We had a fabulous holiday weekend, full of food, fun and of course, sick Heathens. There is only a little sarcasm in that statement, I swear.

We started the week by buying a new minivan to replace the wrecked van (I won’t bore you with that tale of woe), and I swear that buying a car is medieval torture. See those smiles? We were just happy that the 7-hour car shopping/purchasing odyssey was over and we could go home and pass out from mental exhaustion. Car purchasing just ratcheted up on my list of “things I absolutely hate,” and it’s sitting somewhere in between going to the DMV and a trip to the lady doctor. However, the new minivan is nice, and we no longer have to cram our family of five into my tiny Sentra.

After the happy, happy car shopping, we tried to make the best of the holiday week, even though the kids fell one by one to the plague that infiltrated our house.

Two trips to the doctor later, I finally threw my hands up when G-Man also got sick and declared that we need a physical and spiritual cleansing in our house, lest this truly go down as the worst summer ever. Despite the black death of fever, rashes and other unsavory ailments, I still got to hang out with the extended family and Best Friend M, which salvaged what little holiday we could muster around here. I did manage to smoke some ribs just for fun, and paired it with a smoked Gouda pasta salad and grilled corn. My husband also made his homemade lasagna with garlic-parmesan breadsticks, so I will be dieting for the rest of my life now.

Now, however, my house looks like a tornado ripped through it, and I’m pretty sure Bean would stick to the kitchen floor if she tried to crawl on it. I better get to cleaning, so we can start this week off right.