Hello Friends! 

I took some time away as I prepared for my trip to Israel in June and business got busy selling houses! I came back and hit the ground running! I always feel like I work crazy hard right before I leave and then crazy hard when I return but it is ALL worth it. And I have THE BEST clients who allow me some time away. I am a blessed girl! ????

I'm still working on my Israel blogs to share with all of you. Alyssa and I had the opportunity to go with our church to tour Israel and there are so many things I want to share with you that it's taking me some time to write the posts and make sure I don't leave anything out. Look for those next week! 

For today, I wanted to share about our spontaneous trip this past weekend! 

On Friday, Alyssa came home from Waco to have her wisdom teeth removed. All four were impacted so she had to have oral surgery in order to remove them. This girl was a trooper! The anesthesia made her VERY emotional. She has had anesthesia before with her four knee surgeries however this one affected her very differently. In fact, I felt so bad for her that I didn't take any videos. HOWEVER, after she recovered and came back to our normal sweet Alyssa, she found that she had made videos of herself!!! She doesn't even remember recording them! Ha! They are hilarious! If you need a good laugh, go to my Facebook page HERE and watch them. And yes, I had permission to post them! ????

On Saturday, we all decided we needed out of the house and figured Alyssa would recover better poolside than on the couch. So, we packed our bags and headed to Dallas! 

On the way, we looked up hotels with lazy rivers because floating sounded fantastic! I had a friend who had posted they had been to the Hilton Anatole so we decided to check it out. 

I called and grabbed two connecting rooms - one for me and Mark and one for the 4 kids.

We arrived and quickly realized this hotel was WAY bigger than we thought! 

Friends, it is gorgeous! 

We went to check-in and found out they had made a mistake on our reservation. They didn't have any connecting rooms available. Therefore, they offered to upgrade us if it was okay for the kids' room to be one floor away from us. Now remember, our kids are 20, 16, 11, and 9 years old so having Alyssa (20) and Conner (16) definitely helps! We told them that wasn't a problem and they upgraded us to the PRESIDENTIAL SUITE!!!! 

We had a full sectional in our living room! 

and a table that seats 8! 

Kitchenette with breakfast bar and 2 coffee makers! YES!!!

There was a mini fridge in the kitchenette and another one in the living area. 

Here is the view from the kitchenette into the living area. See that big desk on the right by Cutter?! We felt very important! The double white doors in the picture led to our bedroom. Friends, this was a 1 bedroom 1 1/2 bath suite! 

Our bedroom was the size of my first apartment! 

The kids were quite jealous of our room! Ha! 

Their room was one floor up and across the way from ours. See them way over there!

We quickly changed into our swim suits and headed to the pool. 

What we didn't realize, is there is a whole WATERPARK at the hotel! There is a kiddie area for smaller kids, two slides, basketball area, family pool, adult only pool, and a lazy river! 

I snapped a couple quick pics and then we put my phone away and hit the water! 

Outside the swim area, they have a large park area with corn hole and Connect Four games. They played a movie on the lawn for the kids that evening too. 

It was beautiful and we had gorgeous weather!

This was one of the views from our suite that night. I love the Dallas skyline! 

The kids were up and ready to go the next morning! 

What do you do when you get the Presidential Suite?

Play football of course!

The hotel was also gracious to give us a late check out so we had most of the day to hang at the pool/waterpark. 

These two have such a sweet bond! 
*Please note Alyssa's cheeks were swollen from her surgery. (She would want you to know that! ????)* She was still as beautiful as always! 

We are lucky girls to have this guy!

Love being with this girl of mine! 

The boys spent most of their time playing basketball.