Grams house is and was the best. My kids loved it there. As we neared her house Camden said, "You know what I love about Grandma Nadine...she always gets us legos." I told him that he shouldn't expect her to get him legos, and he said he knew. Then, much to his excitement...indeed as soon as we walked in she had two different lego sets picked out for each kids. They were so excited, and she just solidified his thoughts exactly.
But, before they even got to the lego sets the first thing they always do and did was don swim suits and jump in the pool.
People in Arizona probably thought we were crazy (and I sort of thought we were a little bit too) because the pool was a little chilly, but my kids swam multiple times a day despite the cool water. Drying off in the warm sun always helped.
And lunch poolside was always a must.
That first night we surprised Grams with a Lemon Bunt birthday cake as she had celebrated her birthday just a few days before. My kids love any reason to sing Happy Birthday and light and blow out candles. Liv made Grams take an online quiz to find out which Disney Princess she most resembled.
In the evenings we generally popped some popcorn and had movie nights. We introduced Grams to Mary Poppins Returns on our first night there. Sunday, we caught church there and the kids loved attending primary. They pretended they were triplets and all went to the same class. At the end of church, the teacher asked me if they were indeed triplets. She also complimented us on the kids good behavior and said they knew all the answers (hurrah for Come Follow Me...something is going in at home). Then, that evening we visited my friend Erin Alkema at the home they just purchased close by with a whole acre of land. The kids loved playing in their back yard and learned a new card game called Trash that Olivia made Grandma Nadine play over and over with her. After it got dark, Erin's husband, Ryan, took all the kids on a scorpion hunt which they couldn't stop talking about. Unfortunately, on the way home from Erin's our car decided to stop working requiring us to drive no more than 20 mph all the way back to Gram's house.
We were able to get it to the dealership the next day and they had the parts needed to fix it. This made us spend that day close to Gram's house. And, we ended up leaving the next day a little later than planned. But, over all we counted it a blessing and answer to prayer for safe travels before we left that the car decided to stop working in the middle of Gram's city a few miles from a Ford dealership instead of in the middle of the dessert on the way down.
So Derek, took the car into the dealership while the boys and I walked to the pond to feed the ducks (who weren't at all hungry) and then played at the park close to the pond.
This was the stuff my childhood visits to Gram's house were made of. Liv opted to do the car run and stay back at the house with Derek and Grams. When we got back all three kids swam in the pool (of course), and Grams wowed them all by introducing them to her record player. We listed to Moon River by Andy Williams and danced around her front room. Then we all went to see the new Dumbo movie in 3D.
I didn't have high expectations for this film, but everyone really enjoyed it and the recliner seats (for a small fortune).
Tuesday morning while we were waiting for our car to get finished, we got all packed up. Then, I took all 3 kids including Olivia on another pond/park walk.
Then, we jumped in the pool one last time, and our car was finally done around 2pm. We quickly all loaded the car and set off for home later than anticipated. About 45 minutes into the drive home, we had no choice but to run over a steal bar in the middle of the road it ended up tilting up and impaling our car not far from cute little Carter's legs.
It took Derek and I a bit to jack the car up in order to put the metal piece out. Once, again we considered it another answer to our prayer for safe travels that it didn't go through one foot in a different direction and into Carter's shins, and also that it didn't go through on the other side of our car where our gas tank was, or anywhere else that major damage could have been done. One the bar was removed we were able to drive home the rest of the way without trouble.
We made one quick stop for a late dinner/snack at Babi and Papou's and picked up London who they watched for us while we were away, and then loaded back into the car to continue home. It was a late night. We didn't arrive home until 2am, and we all gladly climbed right into our familiar bed to sleep.
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