The Weekend

Here at the D house, we had a wonderful weekend.  It started early Friday morning for me when I got to accompany my oldest child on his class field trip.  We went to a local recreation area where we got to learn about the water cycle and salmon.  The salmon are spawning right now, and there was hundreds of salmon in the river.  It was really interesting.  The weather was perfect for the trip too. 

The kids learned about some of the plants that are natural to the area, the reason they have to leave animals, fish and etc alone when they visit, and they got to put on giant rubber boots to find bugs in the water  - which was the highlight for most of the kids, I think.  {The lowlight was the dead salmon on the banks.  They smelled and one was covered in maggots.  And one little girl dragged me over to it so I could see that there were still eggs in it.  YUCK.}

Shortly after I got home from that, I left the house and children in the care of my amazing husband and went on the Relief Society retreat.  Yes, my RS sisters and I went away for the night! We went to Silver Falls State Park and stayed in the lodge there.  We had a great vegetarian dinner, followed by games, crafts, smore’s, a devotional, more games, lots of laughing, too much candy, and a little dancing. 

I went to bed at 2:30am.

Saturday morning we got up to a fire (well…I did, because someone else got up and made the fire and breakfast) and a warm breakfast.  We cleaned up, packed up and headed out on a hike.  We did the five mile loop and saw seven waterfalls.  It was so beautiful with the ground covered in the yellow and brown leaves.  A couple of the falls were very small (being late October and all), but it was the perfect day for the hike.  I’m in much better shape than I was a year ago too; so it wasn’t too hard and I felt good when we were done. 

Saturday night, my husband took my oldest Trail Blazer obsessed child to see a pre-season game.  We were able to get tickets for cheap - $3.50 each.  I think we paid more in processing than we did for the actual seats.  The youngest two kids and I ate popcorn and watched part of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.  After the littles were in bed, I watched Gracie and cut pages for one of the kid’s teachers. 

Sunday morning, I slept in.  Bryan made breakfast in between his church meetings.  We went to church.  After dinner and bedtime, Bryan and I played the game he got for his birthday:

Settlers of Catan

It was really popular a few years ago.  We had never played (it seems like Bryan played once with his brother and wife, but I think I watched them play and kept my eye on children at the same time.)  It was so much fun!  I highly recommend it to anyone that enjoys games.  {Think Christmas for those game playing men in your life – The big day will be here before we know it!}

It was such a good weekend.

I’m very blessed and grateful for all that I have.

This was one of those weekends that I wish could go on for a couple more days.  It was totally the reward for our crazy/busy week last week.