march memories

Way back in March we had some special visitors - R's grandparents! Oh these people just radiate goodness. There is an endless supply of love and energy from them, and I literally try to drink it in every time we see them which sadly isn't often enough. They took a small cross-country trip to come out and visit their great-grandchildren, and we are lucky enough to be included in that bunch!

Enjoying a nice Sunday afternoon in the backyard. Chatting, catching up on dozens of family members, showing them our home and neighborhood, and playing all sorts of guessing games with the kids. 

Grandy played on the grass with the kids, and tried to teach them how to do handstands. We might need to wait a little bit before that kind of coordination comes along, but it was sure cute! 

 Like any visitor to our house, they both heard plenty of animals facts from L-man. He will seriously jabber away with random facts for hours if you let him. We had just made a trip to the library and stocked up on a dozen or so animal books, and L-man conned Grandy into reading a rather lengthy one about orangutans. 

The next day we took our guests to see the Discovery Place which is just like a science center. You should have heard L-man's lecture on the giant pacific octopus - it was very informative! :)

There's more of the museum than the aquarium portions, but that's really all I took pictures of. The upstairs exhibits are way more crazy and kids-running-around type that we just played together and had fun. Grandy made this reversible bowtie with different kinds of duct tape at a create-something station which she then used to tell a funny story to the kids about some girl with a hair bow who was taken captive by a bad guy (with one side of the bowtie), who was then rescued by a good guy (with the other side of the bowtie) after lengthy interactions between them all. Oh it was so funny watching her change between characters and move that bowtie around to signal which person she was supposed to be. Lauren kept that bowtie for months and tried to mimic her doing the voices. Definitely a fun memory. :)

{yes, Lady-LE might be picking her nose in this picture, but I just loved seeing all these beautiful faces together!}

We played it simple that afternoon around the home, reading stories and playing games. Grandy is quite the hostess whenever you are her guest, so I really wanted to make good food while they were here. It might seem like such a small thing, but it meant the world to me to hear how much they loved the food I made! Probably because she is the queen of providing good food for her family, and I am still in the throws of learning the basics it seems, but I took her compliments very personally. :)

 The next morning we went to a beautiful park near Ryan's work to show them around. It was a beautiful day and the kids loved seeing the ducks, watching a man fish off the bridge, and running around outside. Then we had to say goodbye and dropped off these dear sweet people off at the airport. 

I begged for one last picture of the kids with Grandy and Charles, and am so glad I did. These two people are amazing! I could write a novel about all the reasons why I want to be more like this kind and loving woman. Oh how we miss them!