I'm Back?

Ummm, if you haven't noticed, any minuscule amount of passion I once had for this blog has completely fizzled out...until now.

It's not that I haven't had anything blog-worthy to post about; in fact we have had an incredible summer. We went on a trip to visit my mom and sisters in Seattle and spent an awesome day on Whidbey Island; Joe's sister Angela returned home from her mission on Temple Square; his other sister Julie got married in the Seattle temple to an awesome guy named Zach; Joe and I celebrated our 13th anniversary; Joseph and Grant turned twelve, received the priesthood, and started passing the sacrament...the list goes on and on.

So what is happening in my life RIGHT NOW that I'm willing to re-enter blogland and write about it at 4 am?

All right, all right, I'll tell you.

I get to go on my dream vacation with my husband!

Monday night, we are headed to Europe. We will be squeezing a lot into our 10 day vacation. We'll spend some time in Germany for Joe's work, fly down to Rome, Italy for a few days for pure fun and touristy stuff, then head over to Albania to visit dear friends and wander around our old stomping grounds, and finally, an evening (and night stay) in Amsterdam before we head home. I am so excited, I feel like squealing like a little girl every time I think about it!

The kids will be staying with friends and family. A few months ago my dearest friend who knew that I really wanted to spend some time in Europe asked me, "Joe travels out of the country a lot, why don't you ever go with him?" I told her it's just too hard to make arrangements for the kids. She said, "I could take two of them". I filed that away in my brain. Then, a few weeks ago we were out with some other good friends and Joe told them about his upcoming trip to Germany. They asked, "Why don't you take Allison with you?" He expressed that it was just too difficult to find people to watch six kids. They said, "We could take two of them". My ears perked up and I asked if they were serious. The said they absolutely were. That meant that I just needed to find someone to watch the little girls, but because they are younger, I wanted them to be with family. Enter incredible Uncle Derek and awesome Aunt Aubree who agreed to watch them, and we were set! Some other great friends have offered to help watch the girls on certain days to give Aubree some breaks, and the boys are pleased that they get to sleep in their own beds at night before going to their friends' homes for the day. I feel lucky to be surrounded by such great friends and family members! I offered to reciprocate the favor whenever they would like a getaway vacation. I hope they will take me up on that. I also hope they will enjoy the European gifts headed their way in the near future.

So, here is to hoping that I'll be back in the blogging world long enough to document some of my fun adventures in Europe. If not, at least it's documented that in the month of August, in the year 2010, I was in Europe...alone with my husband...on my dream vacation.