After getting back from Michigan, I was in Chicago for a week and a half before flying to Florida for a wedding. In those 10 days, I was busy with all the Holy Week and Easter services and celebrations. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures those days.

On Holy Thursday, we went to Mass at Monica’s priest friend’s parish and then visited the 7 churches with her family. For those of you who haven’t heard of this before, the visit to the 7 churches on Holy Thursday is a Catholic devotion where you visit 7 churches as a way of “keeping watch” with Jesus the night before his crucifixion. It was raining on and off that night, so we had to run between the churches and our car. The younger kids ended up soaked and Monica’s shoes are probably ruined but we had fun. Chicago has so many beautiful churches!

On Good Friday, I went to the service with Therese. When I got back in my car after the service, my tire pressure light came on. The tires all looked ok, so I drove back to Monica’s thinking the pressure had changed because of the weather. I was wrong. When I inspected my tires at Monica’s I noticed a huge thing in one of them. I don’t know what it was, but I drove through construction, so that’s probably where it got in my tire. The air wasn’t leaking out of the tire too quickly, so throughout the weekend I filled the tire twice a day so it wouldn’t sit flat.

On Saturday, Monica and I went to an Easter Vigil at 4:30 pm. I had never heard of a Vigil being so early, but at that church they had one in English at 4:30 pm, then one in Polish, and then another one in Spanish. I really liked having it that early because we were able to go out to dinner after Mass and get back home early.

On Sunday, we spent the day at Monica’s parents’ house. 6 of her siblings were there for brunch with 11 nieces/nephews total. Some of her siblings left after brunch to be with in-laws, but the rest of us stayed until after dinner. It was a loud, but fun day. During brunch, Monica’s dad asked me if I had brought earplugs. I told him I also have a large family so I’d be ok without them.

I wore one of Monica’s dresses on Easter. If you know both of us, you probably think that’s impossible since she’s 5’11” and I’m 5’2″. It was a one size fits all dress that she bought on her trip to Houston and we can confirm that it truly is one size fits all. We’ll have to start the sisterhood of the traveling dress or something. I really like it, so I used a reverse image search to find it online and ordered it. Who knows, you might see me wearing it on the blog in the future.

On Monday, I took my car to Discount Tire to get a new tire. Luckily, I was able to put air in it and drive it there. My brother, Ricky, taught me how to put the spare tire on before I started my road trip, but I really didn’t want to have to do that. It’s too much work. Speaking of Ricky, he noticed on the homepage of the blog that I’ve driven 4900+ mi already and he wanted to make sure I mentioned in my next post that I got an oil change. I got one before Michigan, so we’re good. Thanks for looking out for my car, Ricky!

Luckily, when my ex took my car to get new tires last year, he purchased the certificates, which means that my replacement tire was free. I only had to pay for the certificate for the new tire. Had I been the one buying the tires last year, I probably wouldn’t have purchased the certificates, since I had never had to replace a tire before and I don’t usually buy insurance for things like that. He’s never going to see this, but thanks, Brian! Let this be your reminder to buy certificates for your tires. You don’t need them until you need them. And if you get the certificates because of this post and ever do need them, thank Brian.