Weekend Getaway

So over the weekend, something big DID happen! Kara, Coltin and I went out to Spokane for the whole weekend. We caravaned it out there with about 30 of our friends to go to a weekend long Leadership Conference.  There were going to be so many big name speakers, but definitely the most note-worthy was John C Maxwell! He is a former minister who is now the number 1 author on leadership books in Barnes and Noble and in the New York Times.  He speaks about leadership to Microsoft, Amazon, the United Nations, and he's mentored 4 out of the last 5 presidents (not the current one).
He is usually paid $5million for a 4 hour leadership seminar by Microsoft! and next month he is giving another seminar in Portland, i think, for the "general" public. I put quotations around the word, general, because tickets to that seminar are $10,000 each!!!  He speaks for the WorldWide organization for free, because he believes so strongly in their ethics, morals and ideals, that he proudly supports them and desires for them to continue to grow. There were about 15,000 people in attendence this weekend!

We all went, so Kara and Coltin had to get a babysitter for their 6 kids for the entire weekend! Friday morning thru Sunday night.  They have several very awesome and capable nannys that they use on a regular basis, so that wasn't an issue.  When we came home sunday night at around 9:30pm, we found out that the nanny had been sick with a flu-like bug since late saturday night. She said that she was just starting to feel better, and wanted to tell Kara and Coltin how awesome the kids had been. Because, since she had started feeling sick, the older boys took over, and made food for everyone (including her-even tho she said she couldn't even think about food without being sick), and coming up with activities to keep everyone busy and entertained while the nanny just pulled thru and took care of baby Jada!  I'm gonna say this again, and I don't think I will ever stop saying it... These kids are so awesome! They are sooo wonderful, you don't even realize that there are so many of them (until you have to cook for them, that's hard LOL!).  However, I still love my Heidi and Nolan more than anything in the whole world!! Love you guys, miss you!  But, monday morning, Coltin went off to work, and Kara and I looked around the house, and really started to realize how destroyed the house was! Food everywhere, clothes everywhere, soap, cleaning liquids and wet washcloths and paper towels everywhere. Mira, the oldest girl, decided to give herself, Alyssa, and Vincent their sunday morning bath while the sitter was napping, and used almost all of my shampoo and conditioner, got water all over the bathroom floor and got the clothes they were wearing all wet, and then those clothes were distributed willy-nilly around the house to leave random wetspots all over the carpets. Mira had also been sick and threw up in her bed so that needed thorough cleaning. The floor was littered with food bits, etc, etc... We started cleaning and Kara was doing laundry. By the afternoon, this is what we were facing as a family project...

Unfortunately, you can't even see the entire pile, because some of it was behind Kara. We turned on Pandora, and we all sat around and separated the clothes into different piles for each person, and then Kara and I folded and hung things up and gave them to the correct kid to put away. My favorite part of this tho, was that it was Vincent's job to entertain Jada while we were doing this! He is so cute with her. They talked and played the whole time we were working on the clothes. Actually, Kara is still doing one more load of laundry tonight! I think tomorrow I might actually get to wash some of my clothes!!! LOL