Visit from my parents

My parents arrived Christmas Day about 11 and left Wednesday evening around 7, we packed a ton into 3 days though!!  Monday we were going to go ice skating, but the timing of things just wasn't working out, so we decided to go bowling instead.  It was so fun!  Payton was a bit bored and we had to take turns taking walks with her, but Heather showed some bowling skills, I started out with 2 gutter balls, but had caught up to everyone else by the end, with a couple spares and a strike :-) Garrett even got a spare, it was really a lot of fun.

Tuesday we knew we'd be going skating after naps, so we had a lazy morning and I made sure P got to sleep fairly early, once she woke up we went ice skating.  My Dad's been skating since he was a kid, still skates on a hockey league now, that's why I wanted to go while he was here, I figured he could help teach G.  Heather and I learned to skate about Payton's age, so we were both really excited, but knew it was going to be interesting since we hadn't skated in years.  It's really like riding a bike though, after a short bit we were both skating and neither of us fell.  Don't get me wrong, we are not figure skaters, but we were going decently fast.  It took Garrett a little while to get the hang of it, but before we left he was skating by himself.  He did fall a few times, but we had prepped him well and told him you just get up and try again.  He did take a lot of breaks, but I don't blame him, it was hard work!  Payton was too small, you need to have a size 8 foot, she's about a 6.5, maybe next time though.

Wednesday we didn't really know what to do, but in the end decided on the Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History.  It wasn't bad.  I was disappointed only because the website says they have a full size Pteranadon on exhibit and G loves that dinosaur, it wasn't there anymore.  But, they had a T-Rex skull and a duck bill skull and tail.  The tail was about 8 ft long, it really puts into perspective how big those dinosaurs were.  I'm hoping to take G to a real dinosaur exhibit this summer.  They also had live snakes, turtles, lizards and bugs, so G liked those too.  We were there about an hour and looked at everything twice.  It was about perfect for a 4 year olds attention span.

Then my parents left after dinner.  There was a lot of playing with play doh, dinosaurs, baby dolls, riding scooters and cars and bikes, lots of cooking and eating too.  It was great being able to see them.  I originally had hoped they could come before Christmas to help me more with setting stuff up, but I quickly realized it would be more fun after Christmas and to help us get through the "no school" time.  Garrett asked me today when he can go back to school, I guess I'm too boring now, lol!