Family Visit

Elise making herself comfy on top of her cousin

I'm SO happy that my parents could come out for a visit this summer! And to make it even nicer two of our nieces, whom we hadn't seen in about 6 (?) years also came. They all arrived on July 1st and were able to stay for two whole weeks! The last time my parents came down Elise was only two months old. Now that she's 18 months older and full of energy, she kept her grandparents amused (and busy!) every day they were here. She warmed up pretty quickly to them and her cousins and spent the entire two weeks being carried around and receiving all the attention a little girl could want!

I don't know if Parker remembered his Grandpa and Grandma from their last visit, but he knows them somewhat because we Skype with them every couple weeks. Hopefully he's old enough now to form some lasting memories of their visits. Needless to say, he had a great time with everyone! We let him join in when we all played board games and he had a blast. After our company left, Park was a bit disappointed that we no longer had enough people to play some of his favorite new games--Imaginiff, Wits & Wagers and Apples to Apples.  :)

My parents at Ripley's

We tried to see some of the local sights while my parents and nieces were here… We went up to San Francisco to walk around Pier 39 and, while there, also went to Ripley's Believe it Or Not Museum. We were hoping to ride a trolley over to Lombard Street but the lines were so long we decided to skip that and take a boat tour of the bay instead. Good thing we opted for the boat ride--both girls loved it! Though I've been on the ferry to Alcatraz Island many times before, I had never been on the bay tour and sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge so I enjoyed doing something new myself, too!


Our other tours / excursions included the Winchester Mystery House, the mall, San Francisco Zoo, bowling and Great America. Our nieces don't have the big amusement parks we have here, so we wanted to take them on a few roller coasters. Well, technically KYLE wanted to take them on the roller coasters. I used to like them but not so much any more. Now I'm content to go on small rides with Parker and Elise.  :) We'd heard Great America was a good park for both big rides and kid ones so we wanted to try it.  One of the girls loved the roller coasters and went on several more with Kyle. The other didn't like them so much and came to hang out with the rest of us. All the little kid rides were right next to each other, so Parker had fun going from one ride to the next. There were a couple that adults could go on too, and we took turns riding with him but most of them he had to ride himself because of size limits. He didn't seem to mind, though! The funniest one to watch was the bumper cars. When Parker would get bumped he would let out the biggest chuckle like he was thoroughly enjoying it but after, as we were walking away, he would give a rather disgusted scowl and ask, "Why would they DO that?? Why do they keep bumping into me??"

Clearly he doesn't understand the concept of bumper cars. So the next time he went in that ride I got a great little video of him in his car, off in one corner by himself, turning circles. Love it!

 Elise tried a few rides but wasn't a big fan yet. She preferred walking around or watching from the stroller… or eating from whoever happened to have food at the time.  :)

Parker found his twin at Great America!

Over all, it was a wonderful two weeks! And, as always, it went by way too quickly. It's always hard to say goodbye knowing we probably won't see them for another year. The kids change and grow so fast that at times I wish we lived closer so they could see their grandparents more often (and yes, I wish I could see them more often, too!). However, the Lord has blessed us in so many ways just where we are--our children, our home, our church family, closeness to Kyle's family, Kyle's job, etc., etc that I can't really see a reason to complain or want to move!  Unless….  maybe the answer is to convince my parents to move HERE…?  :)