It takes a village to save a marriage...

(not that the marriage really needed "saving" but it's a catchy title don't you agree?)

Upon the generous offer of Christina, my sweet heart and I are headed off on a little road trip next week.  She suggested that we take some couple time and offered to take all 4 of my kids so that we could do so.  I decided that I should surprise Brent and set up a trip to Columbus, Oh.  Why would that be cool?  Because the Calgary Flames are playing there on Tuesday night!!!  First on my list of things to do, deal with the only conflict I had on the calender.  This was a sleep over that we invited Mia to.  I called Mendy to ask if we could switch houses and have the girls at her house that night, an idea that Mendy was just fine with, then when I asked her if she could pick up Liza from Christina's she so sweetly offered to have Liza for both nights.  Oh my, I felt so much better knowing that Christina wouldn't have all 4!  And now I knew that Liza would have a blast because she and her friend Mia are 2 peas in a pod.  (both a little crazy I must say)  and Liza will be delighted to be in such close quarters with Spencer too!  (watch those two Mendy.. :-))  I then got on line found great tickets to the game for a reasonable price and then hopped onto price line where I got us a hotel room in the Hyatt less then a mile from the stadium in down town Columbus for $52 / night!  (the room is usually $200/night)  I was pretty excited about this, then I looked for things to do in Columbus, and came up with next to nothing.  I am sure that we will be able to fill the time.  I then went to Massage Envy's website and found out that less then 5 miles from our hotel is a Massage Envy, and since I have a massage waiting for me (from my Christmas present) and it is only $40 to take Brent as my guest, I scheduled us massages for 9pm on Monday night.  It all fell together so perfectly, that that night I was bragging to my Visiting Teachers about my trip.  As I was bragging, I said the only thing is that Alex isn't going to be too terribly happy to be going to Eli's house, when Liza gets to go to Mia's.  As the words left my mouth, I wanted to reel them back in, because I realized that I was talking to Micha's mom, Nicole (Alex and Micha are real good buddies).  Nicole offered to take Alex, and I felt horrible, that wasn't my objective.  So I declined, telling her, that it was really okay.  I got a call the next morning from Nicole, offering again and saying that Micha would be delighted to have Alex come and stay, so agreed, and now Alex was scheduled to have the time of his  life too!  Now everyone was in on this except for my husband who had no idea.  

I told him later as a surprise, but that is a whole other story, to which I have pictures, and I will post later.    But I wanted to Thank my little "village" that stepped up and helped me trow together a dream 2 days for my hubby and I.  It will be a welcome break, and hopefully we will fill up Brents "tank" full of hockey fun!!

PS I posted a little video of Katie watching Dora, I think it is so funny..   The way she says swiper, oh man, and the look that she gives me as she tries to figure out why I don't just leave her alone to watch her show.  :-)