Week in Review: Happy Anniversary and Advice Needed

Happy Friday y'all!  Today is our 22nd Anniversary!

Who lets babies get married?  Look at how young and naive we were.  As much as we were in love back then, it's amazing how deep love can grow over the years, especially when you both are working so hard to provide for and raise a family.  They say marriage isn't easy, but it sure seems easy with you, Phil.  Love you forever.

My $99 David's Bridal dress

When I was looking through our wedding album last night with the littles, I found a copy of our program I had tucked away in there.  I remember writing the story of the white rose, but I do not remember picking the poem below, though it is sweet:

I made chili for lunches for the week for Phil and I, which is a pretty simple/forgiving instant pot recipe but the chopping of all the veggies takes the most work.  So I was tickled pink when I came home and saw that Phil had already done all of the chopping.  That should be the 6th love language - food prep.  We made the chili with 2 lbs. ground chicken, 6 zucchinis, 3 peppers, 2 onions, 4 carrots, 2 big cans of diced tomatoes and lots of spices - delish!  We portion it out into 10 bowls with lids and eat it with a bag of protein chips crushed on top.

True love

Even though I say that we don't really do spring sports as a family rule, this spring has Maggie running track 6 days/week and Xander and Brendan both on the spring swim team three days/week.  It's not terribly draining on the family though, as I can pick up Maggie after practice each day on my way home from work and on two of the swim days I attend workout classes upstairs at same time.  On the third swim day, Phil and I either work out in the gym or sneak out for an hour date at a restaurant across the street.  I think Brendan might have found his sport in swimming.  Just like Alexander, he LOVES it and is improving so fast.  He used to have to hold his nose to jump in (also guilty!) and now he's learning to dive.

He was also very proud to win 2nd place at his school's art show (though the flowers to the right of his hot air balloons look like they were robbed of a prize in my humble opinion):

Eamon went with a group from his high school to hike Mount Monadnock last weekend (apparently it's the second most hiked mountain in the world!)  These big boys of mine just love to hike and be outdoors and that's obviously hereditary on the paternal side.

Eamon on far left

Eamon has spent this week studying for and taking AP exams, which he thinks went well.  It's always nice to get those out of the way and float through the end of the school year in those AP classes.  

Speaking of classes, I finished my first semester of teaching Managerial Accounting online.  It went mostly okay but there were some issues with trying to learn all of the systems and grading and not having the most up to date study guide.  I got an email at 11 am one day saying that grades were due by 8 am and mine were late.  I freaked out and realized that my online gradebook was up to date but I had to go and enter the final grades in a different portal.  Sorry to my students who had to wait a few hours longer than they should have!  Next semester will be a breeze.  This semester was trial by fire.

Now for the advice needed.  Our washing machine is not the best, but it was free (which made it the best at the time) and we want to replace it.  Since the traditional 22nd wedding anniversary gift is a washing machine (I kid, it's actually copper) we would love suggestions of any brands to buy or avoid.    We are looking for a toploader with an agitator.  We obviously do a lot of laundry each week (about 2 loads a day) and need a workhorse.  Any suggestions?  

Have a great weekend everybody!