I'm In Heaven

A few weeks ago we had the pleasure of hosting Grandma and Grandpa Messerly! We had lots and lots of fun with only one big downer when Dad threw out his back. Other than that it was a good time! 

On Thursday afternoon Riley and I headed off to the Baltimore airport, I had hopes I could head out there a little early and Riley would fall asleep in the car and I actually get a nap out of her. A few minutes out she passed out and my evil plan was working! We hung out in the parking lot for a bit waiting for Mom and Dad's text that they were ready to go. Riley woke up JUST as we pulled up to the curb and her first words were, "There's Grandma and Grandpa!" We had a fun drive home, I only almost killed us all once, and we got to show off the beautiful view of the temple from the highway. Thursday evening was spent at home with Riley running around to entertain us all. She was SO excited about all this new attention. Honestly, the games she was playing with Grandpa definitely foreshadowed the back injury. She's not a child that's happy to do something one time. She requests over and over to play the same game and I think that's what ended up doing Dad's back in. That or the air mattress. 

Friday morning I immediately took advantage of my free child care (that isn't also working a full time job, and that gets up before 11 am) and headed to the dentist. Riley was all about being left with Grandma and Grandpa and actually started crying when I returned! Apparently, she was sure my return meant all the fun had to stop. 

Friday also contained the one project we'd set out to complete during Mom and Dad's trip which was making Riley's Branch vest for Halloween! I had borrowed a sewing machine from a friend, but upon seeing it Mom was taken aback a the "high tech" sewing machine. Sooo we turned to youtube to help us get all set up. I wasn't sewing anything too fiddly so Mom really just ended up being there for moral support, but that was a big help in and of itself. 

Riley played so hard with Mom and Dad all day that she was literally falling asleep at the dinner table that night. 

No clue why these videos came out black and white, but we are just rolling with it.

Saturday was a more adventurous day since we had Britt and Ben off work, but we also had to keep in mind safety precautions so we decided to venture to an outdoor location where we figured we could keep our distance most of the time and Mom wouldn't have to wear a mask. We went to Great Falls Park, which I only knew about because of Mel's research for her trip to DC. It has pretty views of waterfalls for the adults and a ton of people walking their dogs for Riley. It turned out to be even more exciting because there were a bunch of crazy people that apparently try to kayak down the falls! At first we thought it was just three certifiable individuals, but then another little group and another little group would come. We learned the wimps of the groups go down the left side and the real adrenaline junkies take the route to the right. 

Saturday evening was a calm puzzling night, which ended up being probably my most favorite activity. Everyone got in on the puzzling, even Dad! Although, after getting discouraged by the lack of matches he was finding Dad took it upon himself to be the light holder. Our living room doesn't have the best lighting for puzzling so we were busting out our phone flashlights a lot. After having been the light holder for a while Dad was wanting some more recognition and said, "Another of my unsung jobs has been moving pieces on top of other pieces." Haha yes Dad, we appreciated all the important roles you played in our puzzling efforts.  

Sunday was mostly a day of rest. We went to church, grateful that our ward obeys the mask mandates and also practices social distancing in sacrament meeting. It was so nice having a few extra hands with Riley in sacrament meeting. She's become a bit of a handful during church, but she sat nicely and didn't need to be grabbed from someone else's bench. 

Monday started the beginning of the end for Dad. He woke up with his back in a lot of pain. Unfortunately, this was the day we had our big adventure to downtown planned! It ended up turning our little venture into a girls trip. When we were selling this to Riley we said it was a, "Girls trip to DC!" The whole ride there Riley would recite, "Girls trip to DC! Girls trip to DC!"

It wasn't actually a huge adventure because we had to keep Mom's lungs in mind. Our main destination was the WWII Memorial since that's our favorite memorial. Then we figured Mom could make the walk down to the Lincoln Memorial, see the Vietnam Memorial on the way back to the car, and call it a day. The only hiccup ended up being that the elevator at the Lincoln Memorial wasn't working! So Mom ended up walking up the steps on her own! That was her claim to fame for the whole trip. We told her to make sure to brag about that at her next doctor's appointment. Oh I guess the other hiccup was that I forgot our stroller, but since we were limiting our walking for mom's sake it ended up being okay. Riley was a champ and walked/ran a good amount of the way. There are lots of runners around the mall and every time some one would run by Riley would says, "Let's chase them!" It was pretty adorable. The only trick was trying to keep her alive with a the bikers around. 

It was really hard to convince Riley to leave the WWII memorial, after sitting like this for a while a man came up to me to tell me, "This is the dirtiest water in all of DC." Ummm thanks for the heads up, but my child is not gonna stop playing in the water no matter what soooo we will just sanitize. 

Honestly, Wednesday and Thursday kind of blend together at this point so I'll now just put a few other sweet memories from the trip below:

• Mom brought some of her and our old outfits when we were Riley's age. Randomly throughout the trip Riley would walk out of her room wearing one of the outfits, looking adorable! 
• Mom also brought the Britt's animal families! It was so fun seeing Riley play with toys that we had loved to play with as kids. Britt made sure to keep reminding her that she was graciously allowing Riley to play with HER toys. 
• Mom coming out of her room after showering. Riley, assuring herself, says, "That's still grandma, her hair's just wet." 
• Riley loved playing with her silly Grandpa, but it brought up a serious question. "Grandpa, are you really silly or a little silly?"
• Grandpa said, "You're a little rascal!" Riley's response, "Well my mama and my dada and my Bo and grandma say I'm a little love bug!" Haha she's got a LOT of witnesses. 
• Mom was constantly on the lookout for things to help with, listening in to all conversations where we mentioned something that we should do at some point. After opening the puzzle and seeing we hadn't separated the edge pieces as we do in most of our puzzles, not long after I walk by and see Mom and Dad swiftly sorting through all the pieces to find all the edge pieces. Well all by 3... ;)
• Fresca became known as Grandpa water.
• Mom didn't realize our air mattress pushed out it's air pretty quickly when deflating and tried to sit down on it and landed on the floor. After hearing the crash I went to make sure all was alright and Mom said, "At least I didn't break a hip." 

It was so much fun having Mom and Dad around for a week. I love getting to share Riley with family who don't get to see her much. It's so fun having people see her sweet little personality and it's so wonderful for her to be able to create memories with her Grandparents. I think half the draw of having another baby is I know that means some family visitors! We are trying to get the most out of facetime and zoom calls, but we still can't wait to see Grandma and Grandpa in person again!