The big (BIG) President’s Day weekend

My kids have been looking forward to President’s day weekend for months.  Literally.  They asked me every night (especially Noodle) if tomorrow was President’s day weekend.  Why?  Because we had plans to spend it in Mt. Green at their cousins house, and they couldn’t wait for their big sleepover with their cousins!  My s.i.l. Chris and I have had an ongoing trade the past few years for babysitting so we can escape now and again with our husbands.  There have been some hairy moments, but for the most part it works out great because we have the same number of kids and they are roughly the same ages, so they get along great, and it makes for an even switch.

Anyway- this time around it was me & Seth’s turn to babysit while Jer & Chris spent the long weekend in Hawaii (choking back a jealous sob……)

So we left Price Wednesday after school  (the kids had to miss Thurs. but had Friday & Monday off) and headed up North.  Wednesday night Seth realized he had left his laptop at home and really needed it for work, so Thurs. morning he had to drive back to Price to get it, leaving me all alone with TEN kids.  Gulp. 

No, it actually was fine, and strangely enough, I had a lot of fun.  Chris’s kids went to school Thursday so it was just my 5 and her 2 youngest.  A bunch of friends stopped by to visit me because they had heard I would be in town.  It was great to see people.  Jeremy and Chris have a big beautiful brand new house, so it sort of felt like we were playing “house”, or little kids playing dress-up, you know?  Anyway- it was just nice to be in my home community and spend some time outdoors. We had beautiful weather and I made the kids get all bundled up and go outside to play every day.  We took walks to the local park and the kids splashed in mud puddles and I didn’t even yell at them because I was just feeling really happy to be outside. (I think I might have case of winter blues, now that I think about it…….)

I also got to go out for some runs with my girlfriends.  Its so nice to have people to run with!  I have to run alone in Price and I’m trying to train for another marathon which I don’t really think will happen because I can’t manage to get my runs in all alone.  Anyway, I seem to be rambling, but I really want to convey what a fun weekend we had.  I let Sav. & Kenni bake cookies which was hilarious.  They made a ginormous mess, but did a decent job cleaning up.  We went to a family party at Grandma Lesli’s and also one at Grandma ‘Ree’s.  The Harward family was a little shocked when we showed up for dinner with 10 kids in tow, but thankfully, things went really smoothly.

I got my hair done (finally!) late one night at my sister’s salon, and afterwards we met the rest of my sisters for a late night appetizer fest at Applebee’s.

I snuck to a class one morning at my old gym, taught by my favorite zumba instructor, miss Tricia.  It was so much fun to see all the ladies there and enjoy an hour of great exercise, even though I couldn’t walk properly for four days afterwards :)  Seems I’m a little out of shape.

And finally, Monday we somehow mustered up the courage to take the kids skiing!  All except the babies, of course.  Michelle was wonderful enough to offer to keep them for the day in exchange for me taking Haylie skiing with us.  Easy trade if you ask me.  Especially when you factor in that about 2 hours into our ski day, the 4 year olds were pooped, so Grandma Lesli dropped them off at Michelle’s house also.  She definitely got the short end of the trade stick that day.

Trying to arrange 11 kids for a photo.  Not as easy as it sounds…..

This is the only decent photo we have from our ski day, taken on Seth’s phone.  So, we have Jeremy’s four oldest kids, our four oldest kids, Haylie, and my niece Lauren and nephew Garrett.  You see, my parents came up for the day also, and somehow they saw fit to dump two additional kids on us for the day.  (Apparently, we didn’t have enough to look after to begin with…..)

Thank goodness Grandma Lesli skied with us for most of the morning.  She helped out a lot.  Then when she left at lunchtime with the youngest kids, the rest were fine on their own, so Seth and I were actually able to make a run or two with my parents and brothers.  All in all, a great day.

And all in all, a fantastic weekend.  So glad we got to spend it in our favorite place.  Now, its time for Seth and I to start planning our next getaway…….

Its payback time!  BAH ha ha ha ha!