It's Always Fun When Grandma Comes

We had a very short and sweet visit with Grandma. It had been 10 1/2 months since she had seen Mateo and Sarah . . . 4 months since she had seen Tino and I. That was far too long. I've been spoiled in the past because I was used to visits every 4 months or so. Now that she is working full time . . . and now that I have to pay for plane tickets for all the children (no more lap riders), it's not easy on the wallet to make the cross country journey. Here's a brief synopsis of the visit:

Friday: Grandma arrives 3:oo p.m. Luggage gets lost. By the time she fills out paper work and such it's about 3:40ish. We headed straight to Mateo's pre-school. He wanted grandma to pick him up from school. We hung out at the house, went to the park, etc.

Saturday: This was the first Saturday in a long long time that we didn't have one million and one things planned. I didn't even roll out of bed until a little after 9:00 a.m. I was so happy to not have to do anything . . . that I was perfectly content with staying home and DOING. NOTHING. NADA. Grandma didn't come cross-country to visit and do NOTHING. So we settled on a lovely afternoon picnic in the park. And then Grandma watched the kids so Cristian and I could have a date. His family members "pay" him for doing their taxes in restaurant gift cards. So we went to TGI Fridays for dinner. We then went to Kohls and shopped. And shopped. And I even got Cristian to pay my Kohls credit card balance that he didn't even know existed. (I just had to open up a credit card account for the new Kohls that is less than one mile from my house. Their discounts and coupons are just to good to pass up . . .)

Sunday: Branch Conference. Long. Good. Spiritually uplifting. Then came the work. I thought the Sabbath was supposed to be a day of rest. My mom used to always tell me I couldn't get married until I knew how to A. Make homemade rolls and B. Make homemade pie crust. I guess I bypassed that prerequisite since I got married at the time of year she told me I was not allowed to get married because it's far too busy . . . (Christmas). Anyway, almost 12 1/2 years of marriage later and I made rolls without killing the yeast AND made pie crust. Now do you really want to be impressed? I also made the banana cream filling for the pie crust. Now I can get married. Right mom????

Monday: Chiropractor visit times four (Heidi, Tino, Mateo, Sarah). Errands. Outlets. Shoe shopping for Tino (who hasn't had an new pair of shoes since August). Multiple Sarah meltdowns. Fuddruckers for lunch. (LOVE, LOVE those burgers!!!) I can't remember what we did in the late afternoon/evening.

Tuesday: Kindermusik (mom attends until Sarah has meltdown). Silver Sneakers (mom attends AND participates in class). Mom takes two hour nap. Pick up Mateo from pre-school. Mateo and Sarah go to Yasmin's house. Heidi drops off Grandma and Tino at the Orlando Magic basketball game. Heidi has 4+ hours of alone time. So, I went to the movies (Fools Gold), ate a pretzel for dinner, tried on clothes at various stores in the mall, and circled around Amway Arena a couple of times. I then picked up Tino and Grandma, picked up Mateo and Sarah, arrived back home around 10:00ish.

Wednesday: Wake up at the crack of dawn 4:30 a.m. Drop off mom at the airport. Time FLIES when you're having fun.