Fast as a Speeding Bullet

Moms always know best.  She knew I'd love this little box.

We were so happy to have Grandma and Grandpa Simmons come and visit us!

It was a super duper fast visit, but it was super duper fun to get to see them.  They are our first family visitors in our new home.  So it was fun to show them our new location.  Maybe next time they come we'll have more lawn than mud and more flower than weeds. 

They looked great and spoiled the kids, like always.  Two jugs of chocolate milk in four days?!  (I wasn't in charge of all the grocery shopping.) 

They got here at night on Thursday and left in the early afternoon on Monday.  Why do I need to tell you this?  Well, it still amazes me on how much weather they experienced in that short of time.

Thursday night:  It had been a nice day so most of the snow had melted.  Just as we got home the ice rain had begun.

Friday morning:  Woke up to a full-on blizzard.  School was closed.

Saturday:  Beautiful, sunny day but a little windy.  The snow started to melt.

Sunday:  Thunderstorms.  Most of the snow got rained away. 
Monday morning (early a.m.):  Sever winds, a tornado warning, and several inches of rain.  School closed due to lots of flooding. (And it hasn't really stopped raining yet or flooding.)

So, other than hail, I think they pretty much covered all the options for weather that we inlanders can experience.  Somehow they slept through the tornado part.  Layne and I could hear the tornado sirens going off (telling us to get to safe place), but we decided to just keep an eye on the news and windows and wake everyone up as needed.

Dad showed me all of his 'war wounds' from his crisis this past fall and gave me the play by play of that crazy day/night........month.  I still get emotional about it all. 


On the way to the airport we stopped at McDonald's to grab some lunch.  We pulled up to the board to order and Judd said he wanted a 'Happy Kid Meal'.  Dad said he wanted a 'Sad Grandpa Meal'.  Judd asked him why he was sad and he said because he had to go home.  We were sad too.

His sadness didn't stop there because it took the airport three days to get them their suitcase!  I don't think Dads life was too interrupted but my poor mom.  She sure did miss her make-up and hair stuff and I'm sure lots of other items that would have been nice to have.  But thankfully the suitcase surfaced and all their stuff was still in it.   

Can you believe we didn't get ONE picture taken when they were here?  That's not cool.

Please Come Again

(just a pic of some of mom's favorite flowers)

We had such a fun time with Grandma Lucy & Grandpa Jay. It seems like we spent a good amount of time in the van, but I guess that was because we had fun places to get to. They came to see the boys play ball. Their timing was perfect. It is the end of the season tournaments for both boys! So they got to see them play several times. The only problem was that they had to leave before the tournaments ended and dad was bummed he couldn't finish it out with them. We'll keep them updated.

If we weren't at the ball park we were at home playing ball. Morning till night for our boys.

Even Grandma got in on the action.

Here we are playing mini golf. I'm pretty sure we didn't break any records, but we had a good time.

The time went by too quickly, but I think we got most of what we like to do done. Dad got to go antiquing and mom and Josie got to go to the mall shopping. We got to stay up late, sleep in, eat lots of candy & pop, and visit. Can't wait to do it all over again next time.

We love you both!!