Hectic...Crazy...Fun

Last Saturday after running a few errands and meeting with Amanda's boyfriend who is going to take care of Kevin's yard and fish pond while we are out of town, we drove to Boulder to stay overnight with Kevin's parents and be a little closer to the airport in order to leave on Sunday. We went to dinner at this great Scottish restaurant and then walked around the Boulder Mall. Boulder Mall is an area of downtown that has been closed to vehicle traffic and is filled with shops and from what I am told "two of every weird person and thing in the world". They have quite a few street performers and some really interesting shops. After dinner we wandered around some to "see the sights". It was an experience. I had a little confrontation with woman because she was following me so closely that she caught the heel of my shoe a couple of times so I moved to the side and told her to go ahead and go. She turned around and asked me what I called her. I really thought that she was going to hit me. I told her that I didn't call her anything but simply told her to go ahead and go. She then said that I needed to "take my junky a** out of Boulder". Kevin stepped closer to me and said something about her looking in a mirror and she backed down and left. Janelle said that with a confrontation with a "street person" our trip to the Boulder Mall was complete. We really did have a good time. We also got to have dessert down there, ice cream from the Ben and Jerry's store.

Sunday was a very long day! Janelle directs the bell choir at her church and she was a little short on players for the service on Sunday morning. Kevin directs the bell choir at our church and I play in it so Janelle asked us if we would fill in with hers. I was really nervous about doing it, in fact, I had nightmares about it Saturday night. We did it anyway. So we got up about 7:00 am and went to practice before the service. It was a real challenge since we were playing a song that I didn't know and only had a chance to practice once from beginning to end and a couple parts in the middle we did a couple of times. I really surprised myself with how I did. There were only a couple of places were I made mistakes but no one seemed to notice. Well with the exception of Kevin who was right next to me, but it was a real boost to my confidence to be able to play as well as I did with as little as I had seen the music. After worship, we had lunch and went shopping for a few last minute items for our trip before heading to the airport.

We arrived at the airport and found that our flight was going to be delayed by almost an hour. That meant that it was going to be a really late flight and we were really afraid that it would end up being so late that it would be canceled. We killed some time and then made our way to the gate. We did actually get to fly out which I was very thankful for but we did not arrive in Seattle until about midnight Seattle time (which is 1:00 am our time). Michael met us there to pick up Amanda and I felt bad that it was so late. We got our rental car, found our hotel, got checked in and finally arrived in our room at about 2:00 am. Very long day for us "old folks".

Monday we got to go down and finally meet Logan in person! What a joy that was! He is so cute and we had a really nice visit with Kristin and him. We hung around Kristin and Nick's condo, catching up on things and ohhhing and ahhhing over the baby until Nick got home from work. Kevin and I took the kids (Kristin, Nick, Amanda, and Logan) to dinner at Rock Pasta. Logan had been really fussy just before we were ready to go to dinner but I held him, rocking, swaying, cooing and got him to sleep. We put him in his car seat and that wonderful little guy slept through the whole dinner allowing his mommy to eat uninterrupted. He started to wake up while we were standing outside visiting a little more after dinner so Nick and Kristin took him home.

Tuesday we had arranged to take all the grandkids to the zoo. We asked Kristin to come and bring Logan so that I could have ALL my grandbabies there with me at the zoo which she did! Oh my! All five of them! What a trip that was! Five little very strong egos. Five little people each demanding the spot light. Five little people with different ideas about where we should go and what we should do. Not including the ideas of the big people (Kevin, Amanda, Kristin and me). It was quite the challenge. All in all, it was a good day. The kids each had their moments of course and we had to talk with them about a few things like staying with us, staying off rocks and fences, not being bossy, you know, normal stuff. But we got to see a lot of the zoo, I think that we saw all the things that each of the kids said they wanted to see. Even with the challenge of having them all together in a public place and trying to keep them entertained and still safe, it was so good to spend the time with them. I had the opportunity to "visit" with each one over the course of the day. They are all growing so fast! I hope that they had a good time and that it is a memory most of them will have for a long time. My only regret in being so far away is not having time with them and my fear that we will not know each other or have the relationship with each other that I would like us to have. I hope that even with the challenge of geographical distance, we will find a way to develop a relationship like I had with my grandparents who also lived halfway across the country.

Yesterday, Beth and Kaden meet Kevin and me at the hotel and we went to Seattle to the Pike Place Market. We spent the day wandering the market and watching for flying fish. Kaden really took to Kevin, when he was not in his stroller, he wanted to hold Kevin's hand or have Kevin carry him. He is growing into quite the little man. He is talking so much more than he was a year ago when I moved. We had a really good day with lots of time to visit as we walked. We eat pizza for lunch in this little corner deli and were able to visit one of the largest spice shops in the world! Kevin had a list of spices he wanted to look for a purchase there and we were lucky that they had all but two of the things he wanted to buy. When you come in, they have clipboards for you to write down your order on and Kaden spent the time following Kevin around and making his own list of items he wanted to purchase. Silly me, if I had been thinking about it at the time, I would have purchased the items on Kaden's list for him to take home but I didn't think about that until after we had left. Next time, I will have to remember to do that. He was so cute at first with that, walking around with his own clipboard, picking out what he wanted, asking what it was and then "writing" it on the paper. Before too long, he got a little bored though and started acting up so Beth took him outside. What a great day!

Today, Kevin and I had planned to have a rather quiet morning at the hotel. We don't have anything planned until about lunch time when we are meeting a friend of mine for lunch. However, today is the day that the hotel decided to test their fire alarms. I was woken up at a few minutes after 8:00 to the fire alarms blearing in our room. Not sure what was going on, we threw on some clothes, grabbed a couple of things and made our way to the front desk where we were told it was just a drill. I had not even had time to use the bathroom after waking up : O . We went ahead and stood outside where it was a little quieter and waited for the alarms to stop blasting. When that finally stopped, we were able to come back in and return to our plan of a somewhat quiet morning and I had a chance to sit down and catch up here. Tomorrow should be a fairly quiet day too which will be kind of nice. We plan to do a little "touring" around so that Kevin can see some of where I grew up and we are going to have lunch with one of my "oldest" friends, a guy I have known since I was in the 9th grade. Then Saturday is my Mom's 80th birthday party and he will get the opportunity to meet a lot of my family. Could be an interesting day. I am hoping that I will get the chance to get some pictures of all my grandbabies since I was not thinking the other day and failed to do that. Sure would be nice to have that picture to remember this time together.

Well, I guess that is about all that has happened in the last few hectic...crazy... fun filled days!