It's Always Fun for Everyone....

When Grandpa Comes!
We often listen to the Primary songs in the car and a few days before Grandpa arrived this song came on. Matthew would make us listen to it 10 times in a row every time we drove somewhere. Yes, we were so excited to have Grandpa come to visit. He was supposed to get in Thursday night at 10. We had Matthew take a nap so he could stay up and go get Grandpa from the airport. Unfortunately, Grandpa's first flight was really late so he missed his connection in Denver. He ended up flying to Austin, sleeping in the airport, then flying to Houston in the morning, and finally arrived to Lubbock at 10:30 Friday morning. So quite the journey for him. It was good timing though. We picked him up at the airport and headed right to Justin's school where he had just finished taking his test. We gave him a little tour (campus is not very big so it only takes a couple minutes to walk through it) and then headed home. Matthew was excited to show Grandpa all the rooms in our house, and especially the yard outside. After a quick lunch, the boys headed off golfing while Koyle took a nap, and Mom chilled at home. When they got home we headed out to dinner and then we went down to the First Friday Art Trail. We had heard this was a really awesome venue but we had never been able to make it. So we decided to check it out. Koyle loved having Grandpa around. He enjoyed getting to wander around outside while we were at the Art Trail. Some of the art was neat, some was beautiful, and there was definitely some that was strait up weird. I felt that the crowd and art right around the Underwood center was geared more toward a young "modern" audience, and the farther downtown we got the more mature of a crowd it catered to. Matthew was so excited to ride on the trolley.

 We got off the trolley somewhere in the middle of the route to watch some Mexican dancers. Jay decided we should just walk to the next place instead of waiting for the trolley again. So we headed off through old abandoned downtown. One of the places had these chess boards set up and people could come by and play with them. Matthew wanted to try his hand at chess. The guys were so nice and let Matthew play an entire game (it didn't last too long because the other guy was able to win pretty easily). Matthew thought he was pretty cool though. We did find one really cool store, and ran into a huge Frat party that looked like nothing but trouble. Eventually we did catch a trolley because the walk turned out to be longer than we bargained for. Finally we made it to the Buddy Holly center. We had to wait FOREVER for a trolley to come and pick us up at the end. We ended up getting on a very crowded bus, but we finally made it back to the car around 9. We stopped at walmart to grab a few grocery items and to let Jay choose what flavor of Blue Bell he would like to try...we ended up getting 3!

 Saturday morning we did Aebelskivers and Brad & Brittany came over to share them with us. Then we walked around to a couple of garage sales before heading home for General Conference. In between the sessions, Grandpa sat and watched Pete the Dragon with Matthew while mom and dad worked on painting our kitchen chair. It was so cute to watch Grandpa sit and interact with Matthew through the entire movie. I don't have a picture but Grandpa brought Matthew a little dragon figurine, which he LOVES of course! After Conference we ate dinner and then it was time for the guys to head off for the Priesthood Session. Afterwards Brad and Brittany came over again and we played cards and ate snacks until well past Grandpa's bedtime : ) It was a fun day; even though Conference prevented us from going out and doing something we enjoyed spending some down time together. Sunday morning we played a few games of Quirkle, watched the first part of Conference, and then took Grandpa back to the airport. We were sad to say goodbye. Koyle started crying when Grandpa walked away...it was so sad but cute at the same time. Justin always enjoys spending time with his Dad, and I enjoyed having Jay around to back me up (garden in the alley idea). Thanks for coming! Matthew is already counting down the 7 weeks until we get to go to Idaho!!