Jeff and Tanya: Our weekend getaway

Okay...I'm back!! It's been a busy few weeks, but we are settling into routine once again.

These pictures are from a few weeks ago at the water park...

A few weeks ago, Jeff and I went on a little weekend getaway!! We went to Seattle. We had such a great time together. It was great to get away, just the two of us. It had been a year since we went away to Vegas.

We left on Friday at lunchtime. I had dropped the kids off at my in-laws place in the morning. And a very special thank you to my amazing in-laws for graciously watching our kids for the weekend!! We got through the border really quickly and figured we stop at Target in Bellingham to do a little shopping. I had not booked a hotel, I thought we would just find one while we were down there...big mistake!!
We shopped for a bit and then we were getting hungry and we wanted to go to the Olive Garden for dinner, but the wait was too long. We settled on Denny's because we were so hungry!! The service was terrible and it took forever to get our food. By this time it was around 8:30pm. We thought we should get a hotel and then just relax for the evening.

We probably stopped at 5 hotels in Bellingham and they were all booked!! I couldn't believe it. So we decided to drive a little bit towards the outlet mall. All along the way we stopped at hotels and they were all totally FULL!! We started to get a little worried that we wouldn't find a place to stay. Jeff was fine to sleep in the car in some parking lot...I was not! We finally stopped at Holiday Inn near the outlets and they were full and the clerk called a different hotel and they had one room left. We took it and gave our credit card info over the phone to book it. It was a good thing we did, because when we got the hotel(about 20 minutes away) another couple was standing in front of us and they would have taken that room...whew!! It wasn't the nicest hotel, but it was fine. We got to that hotel around 11pm, so there was no relaxing for the evening:(

We met my brother and his wife at the Seattle Outlet Mall at 10pm. It was SO good to see them!! We had a great time together. We shopped until about 3pm and then headed back to their place in Seattle. They have such a cute little apartment. We hung out at their place for a bit and then went to a beautiful restaurant for dinner. We figured we should have seafood since we were right by the ocean. We went to a place called Salty's and got to sit on the patio for dinner and sunset...so beautiful!!

We forgot to bring our camera to dinner, so these were taken with Alicia's phone...

The next morning, Jeff, Loren & Alicia went for a run near their place. They are all into running and I know I would never have been able to keep up with them. I stayed home and had a shower!! Then we had some breakfast and Alicia went to work and the rest of us went to a store and then Jeff and I headed home. We didn't want to cross the border until it had been 48 hours since we came through, because we had spent our limit and didn't want to pay duty.

I know it looks like I'm holding hands with my brother...but I am not!!

We stopped at another outlet mall on the way home and had some lunch along the way. It was nice and relaxing. We made it home just after 7pm and 2 of our 3 kids were still awake. We were happy to see the kids again, but it was really nice to get away for a few days!!

Jeff and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary the next week and we didn't do anything special because we thought our time in Seattle was our celebration!! We did put the kids to bed and then we made dinner for ourselves and watched a movie. I am so thankful for my amazing husband and all the years we've been together. I could not ask for a better man for me!! I'm so glad I get to share this journey of life with him. God has truly blessed me!!

And now, back to reality and back to school for our Megan. She had her first day back to school on Tuesday. She only went for the morning and she still went back to her kindergarten class. In fact, she was still in her kindergarten class today, as they will place them with their new teachers/class today. I'm looking forward to finding out which teacher she got. I actually requested a teacher for her, so we will see if she gets her...I hope so!! Megan is happy to be back at school, although the day before school started she said she didn't want to go back. She wanted to stay with her sister and brother. But, now she's fine!