OtterPops: Trips to the homeland

I feel so blessed to live only a couple hours from where my parents are living, which also happens to be the town I grew up in. This allows for weekend trips, or occasions for me to take the kids single-handed on a trip while Jared is working hard either at the office or on a house project. And, it allows them to come visit us when they are in between travels and responsibilities. I'm not sure this will always be the case, so I try to enjoy it while I can.

At the beginning of the month I had the opportunity to take the kids on a quick trip up to my parent's house to attend the baptism of an acquaintance from high school. She had been taking the missionary discussions at my parent's house along with other locations and I wanted to be there to support her on her special day when she decided to join the LDS church. I, unfortunately, didn't get any pictures that day for Shelley Davis's baptism, but we were glad to be there and see Grandpa & Nana for a quick trip. The kids get so excited to see Luke (their dog) and pick carrots from the garden, have sugar cereals and tennis lessons, etc.

We went again recently to spend our "winter break" with them. We had a random week off of school and decided that was our budget destination since Jared has been swamped with work lately and I needed to sew some drapes with assistance from my mom. My parents were so good to make it feel like a vacation for us amidst all the sewing projects I brought. Grandpa generously took us all to the Lego Movie and the Train Museum in Old Sacramento. We had heard such good reviews from the Lego movie that I think we were a little disappointed. I think my kids were a little young and in between Grandpa, me, and Emma napping and Jonas declaring half-way through that "he just wanted to go home," we didn't have the smoothest experience! It was still fun to go see what all the hype has been about. And the train museum was a huge hit with ALL of us! I forgot what a great museum it is. It had been 8 yrs since I had been and Jonas just ate it all up.

Grandpa and Jonas at the train museum

Jonas and Lillian at the lego movie

At the Movie

3 older kids at the museum

I was able to go run some errands by myself or with just 1 kid a couple different times (What a concept!!). Another night my mom stayed home and fed and bathed kids and sent me to use her spot for her Church Women's activity of making mozzarella cheese. It was fun to learn a new skill and catch up with women that I knew when we lived there during law school. My mom stayed up late with me to chat and work on sewing projects and guide my inexperienced hands while we watched Lincoln. She also watched the kids so I could go walking in the morning with only Emma and my former boss (what a treat to have a fabulous park and walking partner!!)

My mom and I also braved IKEA one day with the kids (as I was on the search for several items for the house, which I didn't find). We all had a lot of fun checking out the room set-ups and toys and going to the cafeteria for lunch (we totally scored because little did we know it was "kids eat free" day and we ordered all kids meals with a couple sides). By the end of the 3 hr adventure it was too much of a good thing and we were lucky to make it out alive, but the girls keep talking about it and how much fun they had so that's good, I guess!

Braving Ikea

To encourage the kids to finish tasks and motivate Jonas to poop in the toilet instead of his nightly pull-up, I promised them walks around the block holding Luke's leash with just me and them. You would have thought I was giving away winning lottery tickets! They were so excited to have one-on-one time and feel big enough to "walk the dog." Luke was a very good sport to say the least :)

To finish off the week my parents kept the older two girls with them while I returned home with the younger two to attend book club, see my good friend Tami who was in town for the weekend, and work on some house projects with Jared (while we had only half the kids to care for). The girls had a fabulous time and you could tell they felt so loved and cared for. I was worried they would never want to come back home! How could I top the fact that they could watch Olympic figure skating on Grandpa's TV, go out to lunch at Chili's, play tennis with Grandpa, read books non-stop with Nana, have playdates with Maggie's girls and request what they wanted for dinner??

With the help of my neighbor who I hired to help with kids/painting one day, Jared and I were able to paint the laundry room, bathroom, prep the sun room with taping and primer, paint one of the bedrooms, fix the baseboard in the kitchen, paint other touch up spots and put in new bathroom fixtures, and some new window treatments. So exciting to make more progress on the house! Jared built the window cornices for me and helped me cover them after I threatened to do them myself, but he did get a pneumatic staple gun out of the deal so it's all good :) I was grateful for his help. I sewed two sets of drapes like the ones below for the connecting Fam room and Dining room.