Tuesday, 25 May, 2004

Grandma Andrews and Grandpa Kline visited over the weekend.  Grandma Andrews arrived on Thursday the 20th and Grandpa came on Saturday afternoon.  There was a mix up at the airport and Chris was waiting for Grandma at the gate while she waited for him by baggage claim for about 45 minutes.  She was becoming a little frantic after awhile, as you can well imagine any one would.  Chris had previously made arrangements for someone to bring her to baggage claim from the gate in a wheelchair, so Chris didn’t really need to meet her at the gate.  Oh well.  They finally arrived around 7:30 and sat down for a meal while the girls bounded around them with questions and lots of talking.  Welcome to our world.  Probably pretty noisy for Grandma who isn’t used to little girls.  Grandma Andrews turned 80 last December.  She is moving a little slower than on her previous visits.

Amy loves having visitors, especially if they are coming to see her.  Misha, this year, has matured enough and has gained some courage in talking and opening up to people she isn’t familiar with.  Made it so much more fun for Grandma.  She would sit in the rocking chair with both girls flanking her and would read them stories over and over. 

Chris took half the day off on Friday so that we could go do some fun things together.  We borrowed a wheel chair from Krauses (neighbors) and Grandma was good to go.  We headed towards Flat Irons Crossing and both girls fell asleep on the way.  We continued to drive around until they had both slept a sufficient amount of time (maybe 45 minutes).  Chris drove up past Chattaqua in Boulder into the mountain.  The ride was curvy but beautiful.

We shopped awhile at the mall without really finding many bargains, wants, or needs.  Chris and Grandma went with the girls to play on the toys, and I shopped a little on my own–always a nice treat.  Grandma treated us to ice cream from McDonalds and then the girls were off again to play in the huge sandbox outside the mall.  They weren’t really ready to go when we said it was time to go.

We had promised the girls we would take them to the Artwalk on main street in Longmont.  So after a quick dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches, and with wheelchair in tow, we headed in to town.  There was live music, art projects and dancing.  Just Amy’s thing.  She danced, she glued, she had fun.  Misha even did a little dancing on her own too.  She was content to sit on Grandma’s lap for most of the time though.  I think we pretty much wore Grandma out by the time we headed home and all were glad to drop into bed for the night.

Saturday morning we went to a few garage sales.  Chris scored on some electronic and computer equipment as well as a camp stove at one house and that was the last of our good finds for the day.  Since Grandma wasn’t enjoying herself too much, we went shopping at Target and then Kohls and found some new shirts and shorts and dresses for our vacation to Arizona (or Arizonia as Amy likes to say).

We didn’t expect that Grandpa Kline would arrive until after 3 or 4, but he was able to catch the early flight in and was at our house by the time we arrived around 1:30.  Misha fell asleep on the way home, and I think Grandma and Grandpa both took the chance to catch up on some much needed rest as well.  Grandpa treated us to dinner at Texas Roadhouse that night–good but fairly noisy.
Grandma and Grandpa both came to church with us on Sunday, but only stayed for Sacrament Meeting.  They took off for a park while we attended the rest of our meetings for the day.

Grandma and Grandpa left for the airport Monday morning, but not until stopping to watch the girls in their swim lessons for a couple of minutes.  More picture-taking opportunities.  The rest of our day passed in relative normalcy as I started cleaning and washing later in the day.