VACATION

Last Wednesday I loaded the 6 of us on a plane to WA state. Brent bought us all tickets to go home so he could pass his 2nd year finals. I made sure to have a serious nervous break down the night before we left so he would be plenty glad to have us gone the next 2 weeks. I think so far it is working and he is enjoying his peace and quiet. Right Brent?

(I asked him to blog for me since I was unable to for the last few days. I just got to my mother's house tonight. The first 4 days I was at his elderly mother's with the full time job of keeping HER from having a nervous breakdown. No time to stop to use her dial up to blog when you are constantly herding kids downstairs or outdoors. Well, apparently Brent has been too busy too and we have had a boooring blog lately. Sorry!) .

Everyone keeps sympathizing with me over the long plane ride with 5 children. I tell them that it was a breeze! The last time I flew my kids across the country we had no tickets and were hoping to catch all our planes standby. I spent most of the day running back and forth across the SLC airport hauling the maximum amount of luggage for each of us before I finally found 5 seats on a plane. I didn't even care that it didn't fly us to Buffalo. Cleveland was a heck of lot closer than Utah! Brent picked me up there when I refused to attempt to catch any more flights.

Tonight was interesting. Earlier this afernoon we checked into the Cameo Heights Mansion, http://cameoheightsmansion.com - a luxury bed and breakfast, for a 7 day stay. Amenities include a huge jet tub, fireplace, large flat screen TV with cable . . . all in our private suite. And a pool, hot tub, theatre and workout room on the premises.

Not to mention my kids favorite part -the hospitality bar in the basement stocked with ice cold sodas . . . and Grandpa says they can have one whenever they want! Yes, We are all enjoying the new and improved Grandma and Grandpa Fieldings. There are some serious perks to your parents opening a bed and breakfast. Too bad we have to work all week preparing for my sister Alainna's wedding and just can't simply relax enjoying the free room and board that would cost YOU $250 a night. For dinner we ate a yummy roast beef dinner with 4 other paying guests in the dining room. They were very cool about the family reunion we had going on at the same time. And we were very cool about the bottle of wine they enjoyed with their meal. That was a first for our dinner table.

This was the first time my kids had been here since it was finished. They were running around taking it all in when I noticed Caroline kept running by every few seconds becoming a bit frantic. She kept saying, "I can't get back, I can't get back"! It is taking her awhile to get her bearings in a home that is over 10x the home she is used to. I keep having to lead her back to our bedroom so she "can get back". We got the pretty pink room up in the very top of the house since we have all the girls and I guess also because I need lots of exercise. I hope we can all come back to earth after our spoiling this week. Thanks Mom and Dad!