All Ready

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go... and I'm feeling so excited about tomorrow! This is our first real vacation ever by ourselves since our HONEYMOON, which was 6 years ago! We've taken other vacations, but they were with Ivy when she was younger. This time, we have 8 whole days to just take our time, meander through whatever towns we want to, sleep when we want to, no children, no early mornings, etc. Ahhh, it's going to be wonderful, and thank you mom and dad Stuber for watching our beautiful girls for all that time. I hope you don't get too exhausted and overwhelmed. We're outta here at about 9am tomorrow morning, and our first day will consist of a long 9 hour drive, but then we'll get there (our first night is in St.Ignace), and the fun times will start to roll.

I don't know if it's just me, but I am kind of OCD about coming back to a very clean, neat house after being gone somewhere else for a while. I want to come home to find clean sheets on my bed, laundry all folded and put away (and ironed for the next week if possible), dishes put away and dishwasher empty, fridge cleaned out, and floors vacuumed with everything else put in its place. It's just such a GREAT feeling to walk in the door and know that everything is the way it's supposed to be. Ahhh. My only thing on this list left to do is unload dishwasher.

I also want to continue thanking my mother in law, because she has spent a lot of this week helping me with tons of stuff. She motivated me to clean out my car yesterday by telling me that she would help me with all of it. And folks, my car was pretty nasty. If you know anything about me, keeping my car clean is not on the top of my priority list- I try (for a little while), but then I just feel like I can't keep up with all of the stuff that the girls and I lug into it! So, I spent about half an hour cleaning the junk out of it, just to get it to the point where we could start wiping down the sides, the ceiling, the dashboard, etc. There were cereal pieces, coffee cups, sippy cups, books, other toys, stuffed animals, jewelry, money, basically any small object that you could think of... piled in my car. It's all gone now, thrown away or organized, don't worry! Then we went to it with wash cloths and cleaning solution (can't think of the name right now). Ivy helped and Gwen and I scrubbed out the inside that baby until it was sparkling! Then we went over to my inlaws driveway and I spent another good chunk of time scrubbing down the outside... getting all the bird doodoo and grime off of it. Man she looks pretty now. Jake and I are going to have a nice little ride tomorrow.

Anyway, back to my mother in law. After doing the car, she spent the rest of the morning helping me pack and clean up the house. She fixed lunch for Ivy and I (while Genesis took a very long nap). Then she went shopping, and bought a couple of things I needed for us, and didn't know if I'd make it to the store or not, then came home and fixed supper for us.  And then... today she watched Ivy for me from 8-9:30 this morning while I took Genesis to get her 1yr vaccinations. I love her.

Tonight we were invited to a friends house for a wiener roast with some other families from church. It was kind of a spur of the moment invite, but we were very happy to oblige (especially me, so that I didn't have to cook tonight) and excited about getting together with some people that we don't hang out with a lot. It ended up being so enjoyable. We had perfect weather, a great fire, hot dogs, soup and bread (the MOST amazing soup ever, which I will be getting the recipe for soon), chips and dip, apples and dip and then s'mores to finish the meal off. Ivy had fun playing with a little girl who is 5 (I think), while the little girl played that she was constantly getting out of jail and Ivy was the police officer who had to chase her every time she escaped jail. Needless to say, Ivy was exhausted and fell asleep almost instantly tonight. Genesis spent the whole evening wandering around, trying to find Ivy and trying to climb the steps up to go down the slide, which she never did figure out.

And Jake got to see his movie tonight. He went after I had put the girls down, and just got home a minute ago. He loved it.

I guess we are taking our laptop and our IPAD on the trip, so I'll continue to write and fill everyone in on our amazing trip :) I hope!

Don't know if anyone else likes Deviled Eggs as much as our family, but here's a no-fail recipe from my grandmother.

6 eggs, hard boiled
1/4 c. mayo
1 tsp vinegar
1 tsp mustard
1/4 tsp sugar
Boil the eggs in enough water to cover them for 20 minutes. Run cool water over them until they can be handled. Remove the shell. Cut in half lengthwise and remove the yolk. Mix yolks with other ingredients and then spoon into egg whites.