Fun With Grandparents

Last week my parents came to visit. It was really nice to see them and we had a good time. My Dad got here without a part that he needed to run his oxygen machine. All the stores that might sell such a part were closed so we weren't sure what to do. Luckily, after a few phone calls to helpful friends we were able to locate a part. Our neighbor is a hospital administrator and he ran down to the hospital and got us the part we needed. Whew! Saved the day! It's good to know people who know things!

We did lots of fun things and some work things. My dad was here for a day before my mom got here.  He went bowling with us.  He doesn't bowl but he seemed to enjoy watching the kids bowl.  They are pretty good at it and it was fun to let them show off for Grandpa.  After bowling we went out to dinner.  My mom came up later that night and just missed all our fun activities for the evening.  The next morning my mom went out to get something out of her car and didn't come back.  I went out to see what she was doing and she was weeding my yard!  She started on my flower bed and then moved on to pulling weeds out in the rocks.  We weeded for an hour and got a lot done.  It looked really nice.....on one side of the house!  So now I feel like I HAVE to weed the other side so it will match.  Thanks a lot mom! I've been working on it a little each day but boy howdy do we have a BIG YARD!

That day we also went swimming at the Helper pool.  We had to go to Walmart at 11:00 the night before so we could get Grandma a swimming suit since she hadn't brought one with her.  Grandpa didn't go with us.  He's not too big on swimming.....or wearing a swimming suit....or shorts.....or even sandals without socks! After swimming mom and I went to Beall's for a little shopping.  She likes to go there whenever she comes to visit and buy nice clothes for work.  Then we picked everyone else up and went to Sutherlands so Grandpa could educate Tyson on the different kinds of fertilizer that will work best for our yard.  My dad has a vast knowledge when it comes to lawns and gardens!  We also bought an embarrassing amount of soda because it was on a killer good sale (come on, 25 cents for a 20 oz. bottle....how do you pass that up?!)  Then we went to Burger King where grandma and grandpa treated us all to an ice cream cone.

Later that night we had our family book club.  We just finished reading The Hero's Guide to Saving your Kingdom by Christopher Healy.  It was a really fun book and we all really liked it.  We can't wait to read the sequel! It's about 4 of the "Prince Charmings" from the stories of Rapunzel, Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty.  For book club we learned about the author, asked questions related to the book, did a quiz to find out "what prince/princess are you" and had rattlesnake kabobs (little smokies, pineapple chunks, and olives) and lemonade with worms in it at the Stumpy Boarhound: Birth place to the league of princes.

Grandpa spent a fair amount of time drawing while he was here.  He was determined to draw a good duck and then he moved on to horses.  He can literally be entertained for hours with his drawing.

We had a very good time spending a few days with my parents.  They don't come very often because my mom works during the school year and my dad's health makes it hard for him to travel, not to mention that they have to spread their free time out to 8 kids! But I really appreciated them making the effort.  We're looking forward to seeing them again in a few weeks when we go down to their house for basketball camp!