The Star Wards: anniversary trip

This past weekend, Clyde and I went on our anniversary trip to Concord. But before we left, we had to clean the house in preparation for Papa and Grammy to stay with the 3 younger Wardlings. Penny decided to lend a hand...without being asked. She unloaded the dishwasher for me.

She is such a great helper. She loves to help out.

We got to Concord, a wee bit after midnight. We both were so ready for bed. The fun part about the trip was that we were together. We were able to shop wihout struggling with 5 children. We didn't have to push a stroller, or take anyone to the bathroom, after they refused to go while the rest of us went. We could sit at small tables and not cut up anyone's food for them. We could go into stores with breakables! We saw a sluew of miserable parents and children in IKEA. I thought that, we must look that frazzled when we have all of our children with us too. We have to corale them and yet keep them occupied. Anyway, the trip was awesome. We stayed @ the SpringHill Marriott. I am going to start rating hotels on their shampoo. Most of the hotels, in our price point are about the same. Continental Breakfasts, pools, workout rooms, WiFi etc. But the hotel usually has good shampoo or cheap shampoo. Although the room was great, the continental breakfast fed us, the shampoo and soap was terrible. talk about frizzies and itchy skin. However, I still had so much fun falling in love with my husband all over again.

Then we got to the ride home. Always bitter sweet. Time to be Mom and Dad again, after a long weekend of being Clyde and Ashley. Traffic was terrible driving home. The trip is usually a little over an hour. It took us over 3 hours. We were going 30mph and at some points@ a dead stand still. So frustrated with the drive home.

All the Wardlings had a blast with their grandparents. Erin and Libby stayed with Bubbie and PopPop. They had been there since last Wednesday. Clyde had a Social Studies teacher conference here in the Emerald City and thus the girls needed a ride to school. My parents took them and picked them up. Then, Bubbie took Libby and Raegen to see Percy Jackson, while Erin and PopPop went to the Raleigh Temple with their youth group. Total awesomeness! Thank you!!

The younger Wardlings had Grammy and Papa staying here @ the brown house with them. Of course that means fun was had by all. Maylee and Jared even drove in for a visit. They played Wii til I don't want to know when and Grammy and the boys had a project...cleaning the boys' room. Oh it sparkles now! Thank you!!

Josh and CLyde have been working on collecting the quarters from all 50 states. They nearly had them all. Grammy and Papa saved state quarters to share. They brought in about 10 that we didn't have. We are missing quarters from: Indiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Alaska.