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.