Home

We got home late Monday night from a wonderful time in Montana.  Wonderful doesn't even begin to describe how much fun we had.  It's amazing how being thousands of miles away from 5 kids, laundry, cooking, school, carpools and work can remind you how much you like each other and enjoy spending time together.  We laughed, cuddled, held hands (K is NOT into PDA at all) and spent quality time with friends old and new.  I highly recommend the resort at Chico Hot Springs.  The food was awesome and the landscape breathtaking.  The accommodations are pretty rustic, but they fit the bill just fine.  The wedding itself was an absolute blast.  Dancing for 5 hours straight and 4 tequila shots are my future recipe for letting off a little steam.

I woke up Monday morning, however, fairly anxious to get back to the kids.  I had pretty much reached my limit for being away from them, especially L.  Everything went well on the homefront.  Actually, what really helped was the flooding we experienced at home.  This meant a cancelled day of school on Friday and all soccer games cancelled for the weekend.  I think my 6 page word document detailing how to take care of the kids and a complete schedule also helped.  My sister-in-law Katey is also a pretty chill person and I think that contributed to a fun, safe and relaxing weekend for the kids.

Of course we slammed right back into reality this week.  Just today we have L's first day of pre-school, soccer practice for both A and D, therapy for M and a baseball game for D too.  Oh and tonight is the band meeting and back-to-school night for 1-5 grades at school.  Tomorrow I have to go to the middle school back to school.  And of course we've been away for a few days which means lots of demands of attention from all the kids both physical and emotional.  Last night the girls were especially needy in terms of wanting my full attention.

But, I do feel more relaxed.  I was reminded of how much I love my husband.  I remembered what it was like to have fun that did not involve Wii, a whiffle ball bat or endless games of Zingo.  I also loved seeing the reactions of the kids as we gave them their prizes from the trip and showed them pictures and the video of the bison walking up to our car.  I also secretly loved when L crawled into our bed at 1am Tuesday morning, snuggled into my neck and sleepily told me how much he missed me.  I hope this feeling lasts. 

It is good to be home.