There is no Place Like Home

 My kids always have a hard time returning to our normal city life after spending a weekend up in the hills with my parents. We usually spend Conference weekend up there with them since they have cable and can watch it on BYUtv. We have stayed home and watched conference on our computer but it just isn't quite as nice.

It is always better to have family around so we can discuss what we heard and enjoy cooking and such together.


My parents also have two computers which the kids fight over.  Once their screen time is used up they are sent outside. With such a big wilderness around to play in they should be out soaking it up as much as possible.  We of course visited the tire swing many times and the boys took the play swords and light sabors out to beat the bushes with. Why do boys love to whack plants?  It is my boys favorite past time. They find sticks just so they can hit something.  But as long as they aren't doing it on people I guess I should be happy.

 So between conference sessions we picked  up apples off of the ground around Grandpa's tree to feed to the horses down the street.  Those horses always come running when they see the kids walking up the street. They know they will get a treat.  My kids consider it quite a treat to get to pet the end of their noses.

But my kids favorite part of any trip up to Grandma's is that cousins usually come over as well and they all get to run around outside and play games inside. My kids were very sad when they had to spend all of Saturday just playing by themselves. The cousins had Soccer games all day so we didn't see them until Sunday. We would usually have gone to see the games but we stayed home to listen to conference.

Henry was in tears when we had to climb back into the car and drive home. He always makes the comment that "Grandma's house feels more like home". I am glad my kids love visiting with their extended family. I had to remind him that trips to grandma's wouldn't be quite as exciting if we lived there and saw them everyday. The extraordinary thing about Grandma's house is that we aren't there everyday. I admit it was a fun place to grow up but you never appreciate it fully until you leave and have to live someplace else.

Even after Henry's comment about Grandma's feeling more like home we were all happy to get back to our normal beds and our usual stuff. I always enjoy keeping the kids to a schedule. They are much easier to be around when they have had enough sleep and food. They are usually too busy at Grandma's to eat and drink enough and they tend to go to bed late and wake up early.

Grandma's house is our home away from and we love visiting. We are so grateful to have a place to head to, in order to get us out of the city.

The New Camera

I finally picked up a new camera. 

I gave up on hoping the old one would finally show up somewhere. 

So we bought yet another new camera. 

The old one was just one year old. Our pocketbook wasn't ready to spend the money on 

another one so soon. 

 I spent the weekend taking lots of pictures of my kids. 

Heading up to Grandma's house was a perfect opportunity to catch lots of smiles. 

The kids really enjoyed the Spring Festival that Grandma's small town put together. 

There was a bounce house, crafts, and lots of music.

And there was hoola hoops. Sophie really enjoyed doing these.

This little guy won the prize for most trips to the public restroom. Not to embarrass him, but really it was a bit excessive!

The kids took turns trying out some of the juggler's moves. They spun balls and plates.

And then needed some ice cream.

So Grandma and Grandpa took us to a great place to get some old fashioned ice cream in a waffle cone. Yumm!

I think everyone was happy with that choice!

The boys then helped Grandpa with some chores. That lawn mower needed some extra hands to push it around the lawn.

Sophie loved that the vinca was in bloom and spent a lot of time out in the pasture tasting the necter of flower after flower.

My kids always love going up to Grandma's house. And there are many tears when we have to head back home to the big city.

As for the camera..... I am going to have to get used to it. The colors don't seem quite as bright. All these shots are straight out of the camera. I will need to play with them a little, I think.  But I am just happy to have a way to capture some of these memories.

Roxaboxen

We spent a few days at Grandma's house this weekend. It is apple picking time so the adults spent a lot of time pealing, cutting and canning apples. The kids spent a lot of their time out side. The weather was perfect so I often sent them out to enjoy it rather than sit in front of the computer, which they do a lot while at Grandma's house.

At one point, early on in our visit, I realized I hadn't seen Sophie for a few hours. She had been outside for a really long time. The boys had come in and gone out several times but Sophie hadn't made an appearance. So I walked out onto the porch and looked around to see if I could see her.

I walked toward Grandpa's garden and orchard because I knew that was one of the kids favorite places to play. And sure enough, there was Sophie, in the orchard, very intent on what she was doing.

So I walked around to the gate and went inside. Sophie didn't even realize I had come out until I started to ask her about what she was doing. She quickly started telling me all about her project.



She welcomed me to "Roxaboxen" and showed me around. Roxaboxen is a book that we rowed a few years ago when we were going through the Five in a Row curriculum. It is still one of my kids favorite books to have read to them. I often find Sophie reading it to herself. But this is the first time she actually made her own little town of Roxaboxen. In the book the children made a little village or town, with houses, streets, and other buildings all outlined in rocks. The kids then played all sorts of games in this little town of Roxaboxen.

Sophie showed me her house, the general store (complete with some of Grandpa's tomatoes to sell), the church, Ian's house and the jail (Ian is the policeman). Each house or building was built around one of the fruit trees.
We came out to the orchard several times during our visit in order to see the progress the kids were making on their little town. Every time we pulled them away from this project for a bit, they would quickly ask to go out again and work on their village.

After two days of hard work the little town was looking good. The streets were outlined starting from the gate and each tree was nicely decorated to look like whatever purpose it was designated for.




I always love to see what my kids come up with when they have nothing to do. The cousins they usually play with were busy during the few days we were up there and I tried to make sure we kept the movie and computer time to a minimum during our stay. Especially since one of the days we were up there was a school day.



Roxaboxen was almost all Sophie. It was her plan and she carried out most of the construction but the boys sure had a good time playing out there and helping her dreamed up little world come to life. I love to see their imaginations take over.



As we were loading up the car to head back home Ian made the comment "We didn't get to see our cousins even once while we've been here. But we had fun anyway".

Thanksgiving Our Way

Just about every time we make it up to my parents house, holiday or not, this is what the guys all go out and do.
The woman stay home and watch the kids and make the dinner and the men go out and play.

Grandpa seems to be well stocked with some of the classic models.
We start them young too. Here is my 11 year old nephew taking his turn. Ian has gone before but he didn't this time. He was having too much fun playing with his cousins.

When we did pull the men away from the club they did join us for some Thanksgiving dinner.
A little silliness.
And they helped eat some left overs the next day as well.
The kids mostly did this. It is a good thing grandma has two computers. And many of the families also brought laptops. Hurray for the Airport!
It was an enjoyable holiday. A lot of work and a lot of noise but it certainly was fun to see all my siblings and their families.

Oh What a Beautiful Weekend

We headed up to Grandma's house for the three day weekend. It was lovely! The weather was perfect so we spent quite a bit of time out of doors. We took lots of walks.
The kids loved the trail along the ditch. Throwing sticks in and watching them flow down the ditch was just so much fun. They even found a little bridge that crossed it and had to play Pooh Sticks.The kids visited the neighbor's horses
And Grandpa's cows.
Since we were last at Grandma's house, Grandpa got a big tire for the kids to play on. Evidently these huge tractor tires are garbage. The owner was happy to give it to my day who put it out in the pasture for the grandkids to play on.

They had a great time climbing in and around and through it. Grandma even came out and went through the tire too.
Out in the pasture is a swampy place. There were still a few cat tails there that were perfect for playing with and throwing the fuzz around.
This was one of my favorite things to do when I was a kid too.

It was a great weekend. We are having a hard time getting back into our normal groove after such a weekend.