Wow, what a long and tiring, but enjoyable weekend.

We managed to leave for Spokane early on Friday, thanks to Ethan waking us up at 5:30. We made good time and the kids did pretty good, considering. We immediately went to see Angela and his Mom over at Angelas house. It was good to see everyone and see how much Matthew and Jamie had grown! Even though we had seen them just two months ago, they'd grown like weeds :) After visiting for awhile, we headed over to David, Christy and Tylers house. Ethan had a great time over there as well. He was in heaven playing with all the new toys and people! We then took off to our hotel. Ethan and Gwen slept fairly well in the hotel, but we never got enough sleep to feel rested... Just too many kids to wrangle and keep track of :)

Saturday we celebrated Matthews 6th birthday and had a BBQ afterwards. Good times. We got back to the hotel at about 8. Jason helped me change and feed the kids, then he took off to visit with his friends for a few hours, leaving me all alone! It was ok with me though... Its good for Jason to have some friend time. I was able to get the kids to sleep pretty quickly and read my book until he got back.

Sunday, we left Spokane at about 8:45am and made spectacular time back... Kids slept the entire way. One of the good things about long drives is the time that it gives one to reflect. You can truly zone out and think over many things that you never have time for otherwise. This is particularly true of the Spokane drive because there is nothing but empty fields to look at! I was able to think over many things that I simply have had to push to the back of mind for lack of time and/or energy.

We made a brief detour to see the Denny Creek campground at Snoqualmie Pass. So very lovely. We'd like to camp there. We made a brief stop at home, then headed straight out to Mom's. We had debated if we should go to the July 4th (well, celebrated on July 3rd) thing at Phils, and finally we came to the conclusion that the kids schedules were already messed up and we'd just veg at home, so why not go. We had a good time. I lit off lots of fireworks and Jason was overly protective (giggle) and the food was great and the big fireworks were amazing. Have to say that Phil knows how to throw a superb party!

A lady at the party said that Gwen looked just like a doll and resembled the babies that an artist by the name of Bessie Pease Gutmann painted in the 40's. I can kinda see what she means, but I'm biased and think Gwen the cutest thing ever of course :)

We finally arrived back at our abode at about 11:30pm. I was able to get a load of laundry started and read a bit before I ran completely out of steam. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to sleep very well... Had weird dreams that I had two Ethans. The big Ethan, who was sleeping in his bed, and the 'little' Ethan, who I couldn't find. I got up out of bed and was starting to look for the little Ethan, when I realized how crazy I am and put myself back to bed :D

Today we didn't do much. Everyone slept in. We had a good breakfast. The worst thing about traveling is the food. I feel like I need to detox after all the junk we end up eating from fast food and crappy restaurants. Ick. For dinner we had a healthy and deeeelish meal. We had ribeye steaks (seasoned with a spicy steak seasoning) with tons of grilled vegetables. Red bell pepper, corn, onions, tomato. Oh, so very good and healthy too.

After dinner we set off some fireworks, and Ethan was unimpressed, perhaps because of all the great ones he saw yesterday?

I'll have pics and video up from the weekend tomorrow. Not enough energy to do so today. We've never been at home on July 4th and WOW, it is insanely noisy. There are just tons of fireworks going off all up and down the street. They're going off right over the house and next to the house and amazingly Ethan is still sleeping, though I can't imagine how.