When Dad is Away...

Todd has been traveling quite a bit for work lately.  One week, Todd was going to be gone all week in North Dakota.  I decided that the nice thing about me not having a job is that I didn't have to just sit at home by myself while he was gone so we packed up and drove to Denver to spend time with Todd's oldest brother and also with our friend's the Woolfs!  It was a fun trip.

Paul and his family took us to Chuck-E-Cheese.  We had never taken the girls there before and they really loved it.  Katelyn probably went down this little slide 100 times.  She was in heaven that no one else was on it.

 Paul and Melissa have 6 girls and our little girls were in HEAVEN with them.  They had so many people to play with and take care of them. 

 Emma was rocking a really good fake smile for most of the day.

We had a lot of fun with them.  I took our new favorite game, "Telestrations" over there and they were so fun to play with!  I love playing that game, my cheeks always end up hurting from laughing so much. We went to church with them on Sunday and even got to celebrate our niece, Maddy's, 18th birthday with her!

Todd left early Monday morning and the girls and I packed up and headed down to spend the rest of the week with the Woolfs.  We really love any chance that we get to spend with them.  We didn't have any big plans but I just enjoyed hanging out with Emily all day and tagging along on her errands with her.

We went to Costco for lunch one day and ran into Emily's friend doing the same thing.  We were quite the spectacle with all of our kids at one table.

 Emma and Bronsen are only a day apart and played so well together.  Sometimes they would be gone for hours before we heard from them.  I think they got along so well because Emma loves to be bossy and Bronsen was probably the first person to actually do what she was asking him to do.  They loved to pretend to be different princes and princesses and dance around in the basement.

Stella and Katelyn are about 6 months apart and they didn't really get along very well, mostly because they are at the age when sharing is not so fun.  The moments that they did get along were really cute though!  Poor Miley was pretty sick the whole time we were gone.  Not with anything serious, just a cold but it made it hard for her to breathe while she was laying down so we spent alot of quality time together at night.  That is when I miss Todd the most while he is gone.  I am pretty spoiled and he gets up with the girls almost every time they wake up at night now so I was really feeling it with all of those sleepless nights.

After the kids went to bed every night, Kevin, Emily, and I would settle in for a night of Olympics.  I don't like the winter olympics as much as the summer, but it was still great to watch it! Todd had a rough trip when it came to traveling and had to jump through a lot of hoops to get back to Denver.  He was supposed to land at 3 in the afternoon on Friday, but didn't end up getting there until about 2 in the morning Saturday.

Miley was so tired, she fell asleep drinking her bottle while I was helping the other girls with their pajamas

 On Saturday, we packed a picnic lunch and went to a fun park for the kids to play.  To get into the park from the parking lot, you have to go down a big slide.  It was pretty funny to watch Todd go down with Katelyn on his lap and holding Miley's carseat. (please ignore Katelyn's outfit in these pictures.  I had a hard time with it but it was the only coat that we brought.)

That night, as per tradition, we went to the Olive Garden for dinner.  That tradition was much more enjoyable back when we didn't have kids!  We played games that night after the kids went to bed, watched a little more olympics, and then headed off to bed ourselves.

 The next morning we packed up and headed home.  It is always sad to end a trip but we are always ready for the comfort of our own home, and beds, as well!