Grandparents Visit

We had a great visit with Jim's parents.  We have had lots of house projects in mind and decided with extra hands on the way we should prepare to check a few of them off our list.  So we prepared by buying and ordering supplies, and informing our unsuspecting guests of our plans.

 

Jim started this project before his parents came, the boys were happy to be his helping hands

After a cancelled flight and slight change of plans, Jim's parents fortunately got here Wednesday night.  They didn't have quite as much time for a scenic drive through Montana as they were planning, but Emmett was pretty pleased to stay up late and go get them at the airport where they were returning their rental car.  I still had to work Thursday, but the rest of the gang had the day together to play, visit a new bike shop and park, prep projects, and walk/bike around the neighborhood.  Jim and his dad started installing knobs and pulls on our kitchen cabinets and drawers for a bit of an update.

 

 

Friday we hung around home.  It was cool, but the sun was out and we had a break from the wind so we spent a good portion of the morning outside.  The boys played in the dirt, played soccer and helped Grandma and Grandpa go through their sapphire dirt from Montana.  Emmett played a game of chess with Jim and loved having Grandpa's help.  Jim and his dad also finished installing the cabinet hardware.  Emmett was excited to show his grandparents Wii Sports Resort and all the games that he likes to play on that. 

 

On Saturday Jim had his first bike race of the season.  The weather reports were not looking very promising and we wondered if it might be cancelled due to wet weather and high winds.  The race wasn't cancelled so we drove a little over an hour to sit in our cozy car and cheer for the sopping wet riders.  Emmett and Ezra got 2 full movies out of the deal, although no movie watching was allowed during the race as we had a very important job of rolling down the windows at the right time to get pelted by rain and yell.  We got a little confused about how many laps they had to do and I thought Jim was on his last lap when he really had one more to go.  He decided to be done at that point because it was 38 degrees with a mix of snow and rain and high winds and he couldn't feel his hands.  We were proud of him for making a safe decision and only 5 of the 13 riders in his class finished the race.  



After the race we headed to Costco to get some shopping done and have lunch.  Ezra fell asleep on the way home but Emmett was determined to finish his second movie.  That evening Jim installed our new kitchen faucet.  Our old one had a crack that we had taped to keep a tiny stream of water from spraying out of the handle.  Between the new faucet and cabinet hardware we had a nice update to the space.  So nice to get these projects done with extra hands and extra attention for the boys.

 

On Sunday we went to church and then out to lunch.  In the afternoon we went to the zoo, it opened for the season on Saturday.  There was hardly anyone there, and most of the animals were out enjoying the cool weather.  We also ran into our friend Mac and his parents there.

 

 Sunday evening there was more time for playing the Wii and that night Jim and his dad worked on a workbench/snow tire storage solution for the garage.  Jim's mom stained a trim strip to cover a gap where Jim modified our pantry cabinet to give me fancy swing out storage (that was a while ago, but we hadn't gotten around to getting a trim strip done). 

On Monday I headed back to work and Jim was supposed to work the swing shift, so he got to hang out until around 1pm.  They finished the tire storage work bench and Jim's dad went through more sapphire dirt.  I got home and we had dinner and then Jim got home around 6:30 since the work that he was going to oversee got delayed. 

 Tuesday morning Jim went into work and the boys and I took Grandma and Grandpa to the airport where they were picking up a car to drive to yet another airport for the trip back.  It was a snowy and windy day, probably not the Spring drive they had in mind.  It was a great visit and we kept up the momentum by installing the trim strip.