My sister-in-law, Mandy, and her two oldest, Kaatlin and Nathanael, and youngest, Ruth, along with Riana, Sariah, Calyssa, and I headed off to Albany, Oregon on Friday afternoon. We had a fun time talking and watching movies, on the drive down. When we arrived in Albany, we checked into our hotel room (which was a great deal, since our dance teacher reserved so many rooms. The girls and I only had to pay $40 for our half of the room.) Then we headed out to Red Robin. The service was incredible. The manager was just such a sweet man and you could feel it in the way the restaurant was run. We had a wonderful dinner. When we got back to the hotel, the kids all went swimming. Calyssa and Ruth enjoyed climbing inside of the cupboards in our room. It was very cute to watch them play together. Naomi, Mandy's niece, stayed in our room that night with us. The older kids all went to their dance teacher's room for ice cream at about 10:00p. Then they came back and talked (and laughed) until about midnight.
On Saturday, we woke up, ate some breakfast at the hotel, and then I drove the kids to their dance workshop. Mandy stayed with the babies and got them ready for the day. Then we checked out of the hotel and headed out for a day of relaxing and shopping around the town. We had a lot of fun and received lots of compliments about our cute babies. They were pretty cute together. And I even found a new purse! And a separate wallet to match! And I saved $60 on the set! I love it! Anyway, Mandy and I had a great time with just the babies, much easier than the 6 kids we are used to. LOL! It was funny too because when we were out with the kids, people made comments about the large group or how we had our hands full. Mandy and I would just look at each other and chuckle (since we only had half our kids.) The kids had a fun time dancing all day and even bought a couple little treasures from the workshop. We left the workshop and decided we would drive while the babies were asleep. The kids had their hearts set on going to Shari's. (I think they remembered getting some cool cookies there when they were little.) But by the time the babies woke up, there was only one Shari's left and I accidently missed the exit. They still wanted to go there so we waited until we got to Olympia. (Sadly, Shari's didn't live up to the expectations. In fact, I'm not sure I will ever go there again. I did not enjoy the atmosphere at all.) We had a great weekend. I'm glad we went. (The only bummer was that we missed the Adult Session of Stake Conference, which Mandy and I both agreed is our favorite. I was double sad that I missed Grant's Men's Choir. I did get the chance to attend two on Sunday, which was nice. I will write about that later.) 