I must first apologize to my faithful readers for my long hiatus. Jill, are you there? I hope your still checking in on my blog :) Ok, all kidding aside I don't know where all the time goes, but I really want to get back into blogging so what better way to start back than with a post about a fabulous kid-free (love ya kids, but love to get away from ya too :)) get-away!
Thanks to Elizabeth for the three way swap of babysitting! I know you got the short-end of the stick on that deal, so I owe you one. Thanks!
Dan and I snuck out early in the AM on a Tuesday (5am to be exact) and took off for some fun in the sun in Florida! We had a hotel right on the beach and didn't even rent a car. We had pure relaxation in mind, and it totally panned out!

It's nice to know after almost 15 years(!!!!) together we still really like just hanging out together, I didn't even get sick of him the whole 3 days (hard to believe huh?) I think that's the most time we have spent together in the last 10 years!

I have to admit these pictures are kind of lame, we never really felt like getting the camera out and we didn't really care about taking pictures of ourselves (pictures seem way less important without kids around, or my sisters). Anyway, here are the pics!

This first one is the view from our hotel balcony at 6 am I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep, thank you children for years of getting me up at the crack of dawn, now I can't sleep in if I want to. So, I was enjoying the nice view and reading my book until I was forced inside by the neighboring balcony's smoke fest.

We stayed at Hollywood beach and our hotel had this broadwalk between it and the beach. It was really great because you walk up and down all three miles of it and there were little shops and restaurants all along it on one side and the beautiful ocean and beach on the other side. This picture is the broadwalk and our hotel taken from the beach.

Does it get any better? This is my idea of heaven. I sure hope there are beach chairs and sand and a big ocean in heaven.

Like I said the photo's are lame. This is me, pre-tan, you should see now!

Look at that water, I love that color.

This is Dan's idea of getting a tan, baking under a towel??

Highlights of the trip:

Swimming in the ocean and riding the waves

laying in the sun and being warm

not having any responsibilities for 3 days

seafood

getting home to the kids

We had so much fun and promised the kids to take them soon! They were pretty jealous :)

Sister's Trip

I have the best sisters. I have so much fun with them and I love being around them. I am really lucky that I got to go on a fun four day trip with them. We started this fun tradition last year with a trip to the windy city. This year, we invited our mom and she picked the city. San Diego. We actually stayed out on Coronado Island and spent a lot of our time there. If you have seen how beautiful the views are--you know why we just hung out there the whole time.



First things first, when we got into our hotel room we had to take pictures! We ALL have really great husbands who really don't like taking pictures. So, we were like kids in a candy store and snapping away with all four camera's for way, way too long. Poor mom just kept taking them for us and going with the flow. She's so great.

After staying up way too late and having a great time chatting away we needed to get to our next priority--food. We of course wanted some ocean view seating, it's not everyday you have the chance for ocean view seating! After this it became a priority to see the ocean whenever we ate.





We all ordered lobster. This is this first time I have ordered lobster. It was good and looks really cool on the plate. We loved taking pictures of our food almost as much as ourselves :)


Next on our list was the Temple. The San Diego Temple is so amazingly, take your breath away beautiful. I love the many spires which are equally impressive both inside and out. It is one of the most inspiring places I have ever been. It is really spectacular. Lucky for us we got there when it was light and did a session then it was dusk and getting dark fast when we came out. So, we got to see it in the daylight and the beautiful glow the temple gives off at night. It really is striking, and we enjoyed it lots of times from the freeway because we kept getting just a little turned around and passing it again and again! No blonde jokes.

Me, my mom, and Julie.

It was so neat going to the temple with all my sisters and mom. All of us sisters look alike, and people kept asking if we were sister's and we would say yes and this is our mom. She was always just glowing with pride to be our mom! She is the greatest. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease almost a year ago and her short term memory is really fading fast. But, she kept remembering how neat it was to go to the temple! She kept forgetting how often she told us about Robert Harris. He is our ancestor who was in the Mormon Battalion. The Mormon Battalion visitors center in San Diego, this was a big reason my mom chose San Diego as our destination this year. She was sad to find out that the Mormon Battalion visitors center is closed for renovations. Anyway, she kept forgetting she had told us 45 times already and telling us literally EVERY chance she got that we needed to come back and go the the MB visitors center and that Robert Harris was our wonderful ancestor. None of us will ever forget Robert Harris, I am sure.

Next, we had to check out the Hotel Del Coronado. Man, oh, man what an amazing place. It was built in 1888 and has tons of character and historical charm. The grounds are meticulously cared for and expansive. And to top it all off, it all looks out onto the Pacific Ocean! Oh, and the restaurant is to die for! Yummy!

This is the lobby of the Hotel Del. This picture doesn't really give it justice. We were just heading out for a bike ride and wore scroungy clothes and no make-up so don't look too close!

I really loved this tree, I don't know what kind it is but isn't it cool. This is Josie and Julie. Josie is my sister who is 50, yeah 5-0. I know, she looks younger than me. In fact, it's really not fair because all my sister's look younger than me. I happen to be chatting it up with some guy while waiting around at the airport and told him that my sister's all look better than me AND I am the youngest and should look the best. He told me it just means I have good genes and will look great as I age! I think he's smart! That was totally what I wanted to hear.

Oh, the surrey bike!! We had so much fun on this big bike. My mom (who is taking the picture) sat in the middle on the back row and didn't have to pedal at all. It was so fun to ride all over the island talking and getting a little exercise all while enjoying amazing views. I don't know how I lucked out, but I had the privilege of driving the big-rig bike. We only had a few little mishaps along the way (it's harder than it looks!) No blonde jokes, please. Again, our husbands probably would never do this with us, but we all loved it!

The spectacular Hotel Del Coronado from the beach at dusk.

Julie and Jill with a gorgeous sunset behind them--aren't they beautiful. I LOVE this picture of them.

My mom looked like this a lot of the time! We kept handing her our FOUR different camera's. She was a great sport, as always, she is the most patient person I know.

As you can imagine with four girls plus one mom we gabbed the days and nights away and had lots of important updates from everyone. I can't wait for next year!

Thanks to a great hubby and friends for taking over my mom duties so I could enjoy this very memorable time with my sisters and mom.

Beaver Island, MI

The Ferry ride over to Beaver Island (click on name to learn more about BI) was about two hours and we had a fun ride. All the kids were so excited to ride the boat and check out Beaver Island. Jake and Estee are enjoying the ride.

Playing cards and relaxing on the boat ride.


Jake and Dan getting a little one on one--look at Jake's little captain hat he got on this trip--he didn't want to take it off.
Estee enjoying one of her few moments of holding still with grandpa.

We made it to Beaver Island! We even have some town folk to meet us at the dock.Yeah! Finally I get to go swimming!!

Grandpa loves telling jokes and in this joke Jake is suppose to respect Siam by saying "Oh what an ahhh Siam" But it kind of sounds like he's saying "oh what an a-s-s I am". He kept saying it louder the more we laughed! Grandpa got this video of the whole thing. It's pretty funny.

Abby "teaching" how to pose for pictures.

Estee running on the beach, why is it so much fun to watch a little toddler run?

Is Andy giving the sunset "the bird"?

This beach is famous for it's sunsets--so pretty!

The light house on Beaver Island has really cool twisty stairs, and a lot of gross bugs and spiders.

Coming back to Charleviox--look my dream house is for sale!
We saw this cool pirate ship--if you look close you can see them working way up high on those little boards and ropes. So cool!

We had a race back to Ann Arbor boys vs girls. Luckily it was pretty uneventful, we were both driving way too fast. Dan thought he could go the "better" way when we were leaving Petoskey (4-5 hour drive home) and wouldn't listen to me so we both went the way we thought was best. He called me about an hour later and we figured out I was about two miles ahead of him on the freeway (ha, ha). He tried for the next 3 hours to catch me, but what can I say, I am a hard person to catch on the freeway. With about 15 minutes left on our drive home, he almost caught me (I am sure I just cleared the way for him), when I had to pull over for gas and a stinky diaper (totally not fair that I was driving with the two-year old!). He passed me by and he got home before us, but I still consider it a victory for me!

While the boys are away.....the girls will play

While the Boys were off exploring the UP the girls and I had to get some play time in! We had one day of shopping which was so fun. Abby loved having time with mom and no boys around, Estee was so good the whole time riding around in the stroller. Abby and I loved picking things out for Estee and ourselves!
The next day we were up bright and early and heading over the Lake Michigan with my good friend Becky. We went to South Haven and it was the most perfect beach. The weather could not have been better and it was beautiful!

See those waves crashing in? They entertained the kids all day except for Estee who was entertained all day long by a little family sitting near us. They had a little girl who was 2 weeks older than Estee. Below is a picture of Estee making herself at home with them.

She also really liked their toys better than ours--like this bucket.

My friends little girl, Ashley, she's adorable.

We saw this cool pirate ship sailing--the swimmer on the left is Abby.

That night Abby had a sleep over with her good friend and the next morning we left bright and early to meet the boys. We met in Charlevoix, MI, but we made a quick stop in
Petoskey to get a petoskey stone for Abby--to learn more about petoskey stones click here. We also got some lunch at the local Toast and Roast it was soooo good! We actually ended up stopping on the way back through with the boys so they could try it out too! Yummy!

We finally made it to Charlevoix and it is BEAUTIFUL!! It was our first time there so we had no idea how pretty it was. The streets are all lined with flowers and there are some amazing houses overlooking the water--all with yards full of beautiful flowers, I love flowers, so I loved this.

Here are Abby and Estee over looking the bay at Charleviox. Waiting for the boys.

Oh, look who decided to show up in the nick of time, we had a whole 10 minutes to spare before the boat left us--plenty of time.

Los Angeles and Fresno

After being home from Miami for about 12 hours we found ourselves leaving our children in the trusting hands of Grandma and Aunt Lindsay once again and heading to the airport for some more adventure and airline travel. This time we were heading out to Los Angeles. Dan and I had both gotten head colds from our trip to Miami (at least we were told that EVERYONE who flies into Miami gets a cold) I didn't really believe it and still don't really except that I did get a cold. So our ears were all plugged and it hurt like crazy from all the pressure on the airplane. I kept blowing my nose (sorry this is gross) because that was the only thing that would pop my ears and make it stop hurting. Dan kept blowing his nose too and I am sure the poor lady sitting next to us has a story now of her worse airplane experience thanks to us. She kept putting on hand sanitizer--seriously.

Our hotel was actually in Anaheim and just 2 short blocks from Disneyland (our kids were jealous, but we didn't go to Disneyland so it was OK--hotels are just cheaper there, and um, yeah, I go where it's cheap) and it was really close to where Dan needed to be the next day. Dan didn't have any meetings until the next day so we checked out the area and found a great outdoor shopping mall which Dan quickly grew tired of but I knew I would be back to the next day while Dan was occupied. We found a really good Mexican restaurant that had fresh Guacamole and the best salsa I can remember. In fact it was so good we went back the next day! There is no good Mexican food anywhere near us back in Michigan so we have to take advantage when we get the chance :)

While I shopped to my hearts content with no husband or kids slowing me down. I found out later that Dan got a tour (keep in mind this is for a surgery fellowship where you never get to leave the hospital) of the two local beaches!!! So, I didn't get to even see the beach while in California but they took Dan on tour. Whatever, if we actually move there I will have to make up for that bit of injustice. After our second visit to the Mexican restaurant we left our UC Irvine adventures and we drove to Fresno, CA.

This is a view of the mountains between LA and Fresno, I heard they call this "the vineyard". It was beautiful and this picture does not give it justice because I took it while going 75 through a car window. Oh, don't worry I wasn't driving and taking pictures. Dan was driving see picture below of Dan--driving. Try not to be too jealous of the TWO (yeah, we only took two!) really great pictures that we took while in California.

At least we were both in the picture--look into his glasses and you can see a little miniature me taking the picture of him.

We had a great time while in Fresno and we were even able to see the Poulsens, some friends from Ann Arbor. We had fun seeing them and their cute family, eating good food, watching the Jazz game, catching up, and getting the low-down on Fresno from them. Thanks Poulsens for being great hosts and sharing your mothers day with us!

We left Fresno at 5:00 Sunday night and got back to Ann Arbor at 5:00 AM the next day! We had a 3 hour layover in Los Angeles. Dan being his usual charming self got us into the sky perks lounge. Where we had free drinks, snacks, Internet access, private bathrooms, and couches and chairs to lounge around on. This seemed like such a luxury (compared with normal airport accommodations) way to go Dan! The three hour layover went by so fast when we went down to board our plane we just about missed it--we were the last ones on.

I really missed seeing my own kids on Mothers Day, but when I got home Jake had made me such wonderful cards and they were all so happy to see me it was great to be home and see my cuties. It was also much easier knowing Dan's great mom was here with the kids and that they were safe and happy and even a little spoiled :)

Jake's Mother's Day artwork--I love it.

Jake made me such nice things for Mother's Day. Grandma said he spent hours coloring this tiger picture--what a cutie.

While were gone Abby was in the Science Olympiad in two events--Mystery Architecture and Write it/Build it. She did a great job and I felt bad to miss it and miss seeing her in it she is so smart and talented. Andy was in two track meets and he did really good. He has come so far from hating running to actually being on the track team and loving it. I love watching him want to improve and working hard--makes a mom proud.

.....Get set.....

..Go!

Suffering through the rain and ready to relay.

Jake had a couple soccer games which was fun for Grandma and Lindsay to watch. Estee spent a large portion of the time playing barbies with Grandma. She had a grand time and now won't sleep without her barbie, and I'm sure she is bored to death with mom now that Grandma is gone!

Thanks Grandma and Lindsay!