We had a wonderful time!

I know I'm late getting to telling the tale of our vacation but I've either been too tired or too busy so it's just happening now. I uploaded pictures to my Photobucket account this AM and created my first slide show of some of the pictures but for some reason I can't get the coding/copying right so time was wasted on that.

But on to the tale! I've already described the first night's re-introduction to the kids at their other grandparent's very nice restaraunt and it was a very great evening. Astin was kind of shy for the first little while and Marinda took to us like she had been waiting forever for us to show up and introduce ourselves. She is an extroverted little girl and made friends with us in just a few minutes. We brought 2 toy, stuffed hamsters as gifts for the kids and after supper, Marinda and I taught her hamster some tricks- sit, lie down, roll over and how to stand on its head. Marinda seemed to think that was great fun. Here's some pictures from the first night-



The next day the kids and their mom came to our hotel room, (thanks Comfort Suites!) just before lunch and during a drowning downpour. The weather ruled out our plans for a nature center trip so instead we first went to lunch-

then played with some new toys in our room and then went for a dip in the hotel pool-





We had a great time playing in the pool until we were all well wrinkled and played in our room a little longer- Astin loved the Hot Wheels track and cars I had bought for him and then we went to another pool where Astin had a scheduled swimming lesson. Afterwards, we all got to pet a stuffed black bear and admire lots of other game animal mounts at the adjacent sporting goods store. The kids really seemed to think that black bear down at their level was pretty neat!

The next morning, before we had to leave, we met the grandbabies and their mom one more time, this time for breakfast at Cracker Barrel. We spent some time just playing and sharing some pictures we had printed up early and finally said our good-byes and headed back to the airport for the next leg of our journey. That's the next post...

I think everyone agreed that our visit was a huge success. The kids seemed to really like us, (hey, toys helped) and enjoyed playing with us. Their mom was gracious and friendly and relaxed and provided us with some really nice pictures of the kids from a studio. (Where did I save those? I know I scanned them at Mom's.) We talked about how often we might be able to repeat the trip. I know I would like to do it 3 times a year if I can work the costs into our budget. We will have to see. I do know we will be going back as often as we can afford and Sara will tolerate!