Sunday, May 17, 2009

Grammy and Pa Pa


We just had a wonderful visit with Jeff's parents (A month ago!) and I have been working on this post forever! They were able to spend 3 weeks with us and we are so grateful for that time. It's hard to believe that it had been over a year since we last saw them. We need to make sure we don't go that long between visits again!

The first 2 weeks they stayed at the fairgrounds in their RV and would come spend time with us each day. Grammy had the kids and I over for dinner a couple of time and one night and she fixed orange jello with manderines in it. Avery thought that was sooooo cool!

PaPa was able to babysit Blake a couple of times while Jeff and his mom went fishing. Thankfully he is an easy baby, so he had no problems! Blake, of course, loved the visits with Grammy and PaPa. Anyone that showers him with attention is alright in his book! He is such a happy baby lately! He has not hit the shy phase yet at all.

Avery, always slow to warm up, enjoyed her time with her grandparents. She embarassed me a couple of times in the way that all 3 year olds do. The tantrums are something I could live without. Once she gets her mind on something, that is all she focuses on. Jan and I went to Kmart one day and I let Avery come along since I needed to get her some new shoes for school. What a mistake. What was supposed to be a leisurley trip was soon filled with the whines of a 3 year old that HAD to have a new baby. (because she doesn't have enough already...) So, for the last half of our visit, all you could hear was Avery crying, "I want a new baby" over and over and OVER again. I tried to ignore it and continue browsing, but she wouldn't give up. Jan tried to distract her, but it didn't work at all. Not so fun! (The Dora shoes we bought that day did not get to be worn until the next afternoon because her behavior was so bad...)

The last week together we all went to Yosemite and stayed in a cabin about 100 yards from Grammy and PaPa's RV. Each day we went into the Yosemite Valley and did different hikes. Avery's spontaneous "Wow!" 's were my favorite part of the trip. She really liked the waterfalls! She thought the tunnels were pretty neat too, and would ask each day if we were going to drive through them. She would ride in Grammy's yellow bug car most days, and she is convinced that we need to get a yellow bug car for ourselves.

The first full day there (Sunday) it rained most of the day, and we went to Hetch Hetchy Dam. We walked over the Dam and found some Salimanders on the trail. There were at least 6 or 7 that we found, and they were so cute! Even with the weather, it was a beautiful place. I can only imagine how pretty it is on a sunny day!

Monday we went to the Yosemite Visitors Center, walked through the Ansel Adams Gallery, watched a great film on the history of Yosemite, and "hiked" to the Lower Yosemite Fall. A word to the wise - take a rain coat in the spring. You can't get within a 100 yards of any of the falls without getting wet! The force of the water is amazing! Avery was a trooper walking on the trails with us! She enjoyed all of the birds, but not the water so much!

Tuesday we went to see Bridal Veil Fall, the Awahnee Hotel and hiked to Mirror Lake. It was another beautiful hike. I wonder how many times I will say the word beautiful??? It just was! You look at the Valley, and all of the rock formations and just wonder what God was thinking when he put this all together. To have this many amazing rock formations all in one place is overwhelming. Anyhow - Mirror lake isn't what it used to be. Every year it gets smaller due to the sediment being carried down by the run off into the lake. But the view of Half Dome was spectacular (or was it beautiful??? :o) and we enjoyed sitting by the lake for a while. Another tourist was kind enough to take this photo for us:


Wednesday we hiked to Vernal Falls. It was a pretty good hill up to the falls and Avery decided that she didn't care to walk. Blake was in the Jogger sleeping and I carried Avery on my back. It was a bit of a workout! Half way up, Avery decided that she needed to go potty, so she and I turned around and headed back down the hill in search of one. I knew it was about a 1/2 mile away, so I hoped she would make it! We sang the "Wheels on the Bus" song to help distract her, but half way there she said, "Mommy I can't hold it any more!" So, I waited until there were no people walking by and I helped her water the ground. I felt a little bad about doing that in a National Park, but depserate times call for desperate measures... She felt much better after that and we waited at the bottom of the trail for everyone to come back down.

Thursday found us at the Mariposa Grove looking at the giant sequoias. It was amazing. The tram wasn't running yet, and we weren't up for the 2.5 mile hike to the visitor center, but we did part of the trail and got to see quite a few nice trees. My favorite is the Bachelor and the 3 Graces. There are few other giant sequoias behind the 3 Graces and I decided that one of them was the mother-in-law keeping a distant watch over her son (The Bachelor) and the other was the father-in-law keeping watch over the mother-in-law. Thankfully MY mother-in-law thought that was funny! I have a wonderful in-law family!

Friday we drove out to Glacier Point to see this spectacular view:
I think the picture speaks for itself.

We were in the Valley for 5 days, but it still wasn't enough time to see it all. We can't wait to go back! We are so grateful for the time we had with Jeff's parent's. Such wonderful memories were made and I love listening to Avery talk about the trip at random time throughout the day. We may not get much time with that side of the family, but this was definately QUALITY time.








My Goodness!


What a month it has been! So, we spent Easter weekend with my sister and her family. My brother drove with us and did a lot of the driving (thank you Brendon!) and we had a great time. The kids had fun hunting for Easter eggs in the back yard. We hid eggs, and little Elmo, Disney Princess and Batman containers all over the yard. Avery was a crack up about it. If she spotted a Batman container, she would purposely bypass it even though it had the same candy in it as the other ones! Such a girl! She was the same way at the "egg hunt" we went to on Saturday. It was a huge field that was broken into different sections for different age groups. At exactly 10am all of the kids ran into the appropriate area and picked up as many goodies as they could fit into their baskets. Each section had treats laying all over the ground in plain sight. I was worried that Avery wouldn't participate - she can be so shy, she wouldn't even sit on the Easter Bunny's lap that day, even though she was the one who asked if she could go see him! Tristan and Allie loved all over him! So when the time came for them to all go "hunting" I worried that she would freak out with the 100+ other kids around her since we couldn't go in and help her. Nope! She had a ball searching for all of the goodies. The girl was on a mission and would bypass 10 things to get to one specific thing. It was so funny.

At one point she was about 50 yards away and looked up to show us what she had found. I thought, "Here we go, she's gonna freak out". But no, she just smiled and waved what she had and kept on going! The whole hunt lasted about 5 minutes. Once all of the goodies had been snatched up, that was it! But it was so fun! And of course, as soon as it was over, they wanted a treat out of their baskets!



Once we got home from our visit with Auntie Sis and Uncle Mark, Jeff's parents came in to town. We had a wonderful time with them during the 3 weeks we had together, and Avery is still talking about them. A lot of good memories were made.