A visit from Nana and Papaw

The weekends always go by way too fast, don't they? They especially do when you're dreading the end of them more than usual.
Mom and Dad got here Thursday afternoon. The girls were ecstatic! We had to peel them from the ceiling all weekend long. They were so excited to get to spend time with their Nana and Papaw. On Friday, Nathan and Dad went fishing. (I think that was the main reason we got my Dad down here for the weekend-aside from seeing his girls, of course!) The girls, Mom and I went shopping. We found lots of good deals for the kids. ~Isn't that ALWAYS the way it works out? We all had a good time, well Mom and I enjoyed ourselves. I had to bribe the girls with a new webkinz pet and a chance to play in the play area at the mall to keep them from whining about going into ANOTHER store. Hey, whatever works! Taylor HATES to try on clothes! I have such a hard time finding things that fit her right that I have to have her try on everything as not to risk having to come back with returns. So she had to be reminded of her reward (new webkinz) many, many times. Emma doesn't mind trying on so much, it's just getting her to stand still long enough to get the clothes on her! She bends and poses and sticks out her behind while you're squatting down to her level pulling and tugging to get things over her little booty that she's holding way out to the side, begging her to straighten up and hold still. It's a workout in itself! I put Mom in one dressing room with Emma and I took another room with Taylor. After about 4 1/2 hours at the mall, both girls had reached their breaking point. So I bought them their new pets and we headed home.

We'd had a good excuse to stay out shopping all afternoon. We talked to Nathan and Dad earlier in the day and they were on their way home to take a nap and encouraged us to spend as much time out that afternoon as we'd wanted to. They left home that morning to go fishing at 4 am!! How they find that sport anywhere near worth getting up at that ridiculous time in the morning is beyond me! But anyway, it did give us a good excuse to do a little more shopping. ~We were helping them out and doing something nice FOR THEM. Uh huh.

Later that night Nathan was asking if I had gone in a particular department store known for heavily reducing the prices of their nicer khaki pants and dress shirts this time of year. Since they NEVER reduce anything worth looking at in the misses department like they did in men's, I had bypassed them all together. (I'll show THEM!) He had stopped in that store in a mall in Stuart (a town about an hour or so south of here) and said that they had tons of khakis and dress shirts really cheap. So he got my dad interested in checking it out and believing that he could use a few new duds himself. So Saturday, after having a big breakfast and all of us getting dressed, we headed down to Stuart to the mall. We didn't tell the girls where we were going, lest we'd see the devil himself come out in them and fits would be had. So we told them we were just taking a ride and going to Stuart to see what we could find and we'd go out to eat. Since they both love going to restaurants, they kept their fits in check. That is until we got to the mall. Upon entering the parking lot, Taylor made the connection and verbalized it that "This looks like a mall! Please tell me we're NOT going shopping again!" Then Emma chimed in "NO, I don wan go to da maw!" We assured them that we'd only be a few minutes to let Daddy and Papaw find some pants and shirts. Taylor did pretty well the whole time, keeping the whining and dragging of feet to a minimum. Emma didn't do as well. She started crying and whining about 30 minutes into it. She didn't stop until we were walking back through the parking lot. It was not a pleasant experience! And of course, that would be the time I'd find several really cute things (ON SALE) that I wanted to try on but couldn't since she was throwing fits every 2 minutes. Oh well. We did have a nice dinner.

We went to a seafood place on the river (Intercoastal Waterway). We sat outside on the back deck and the weather was so nice. There was a warm breeze blowing the whole time. The girls got to feed the seagulls the leftover bread we'd had. They loved doing that. Mom and I enjoyed sharing a piece of key lime pie and coffees after we'd persuaded the men to take the girls to feed the birds. When they came back, there was one bite of pie left that had to be split by two slightly perturbed little girls. ~they hadn't known we were sitting there enjoying dessert! ;-) Since it was time to go they just shoveled in their half bites and licked their spoons clean right quick without saying much.

This morning we got up early to take Nana and Papaw back to the airport to catch their plane home. On the way to the airport, Emma decided that she didn't want to call Papaw "Papaw" anymore, rather she is going to start calling him "just 'Paw'". Not long after that little revelation, she decided that "Paw" wasn't right either, instead it would be "Pop". By the time we let them out at the airport, he was being called "Poppy". We'll see if any of those stick. Taylor was pretty quiet the whole trip. She is always very sad the day her grandparents leave. It's heartbreaking for me to see her that way. She did hold it together pretty well and didn't cry too much, unlike Emma who wailed and wailed for miles after pulling away from the airport. Taylor was hugging on Emma in the back seat and trying to comfort her. It was sweet. She told her "Emma, when you start missing Nana, just smell of your neck and you can smell her." I about lost it when I heard her say that. But then the tears were replaced by laughter when I looked in then rear view mirror to see Emma straining her head down as far as she could trying to get her nose to her neck. She was getting frustrated and said "How do you do dat? I can't do it!" Taylor showed her to pull out the neck of her shirt and put her nose to it. Much easier than bending your neck down. Apparently she smelled Mom's perfume on her too because she hushed and was mesmerized by that for a while.

Nathan left today too, heading for Wisconsin for meetings. He'll be there until Wednesday afternoon. Before he left he was telling Taylor that they had piles of snow there taller than his head and how he was going to get to see a lot of snow. He asked her if she'd like to live there one day. I interjected that they don't have swimming pools in their backyards there and they never get to go swimming since it's cold up there (thinking that I'd turn her off to the idea of living in a place like that) to which she replied "Yeah, but they have ice skating!" I guess she told me!

Well, I know this post wasn't very witty or funny. I didn't much have any of that in me this afternoon. I hope you have a great week this week and try to look on the bright side of whatever situations you're in this week (like Taylor did with the ice skating). Talk to you again soon!