A Few of Their Favorite Things

So we have about and hour and a half before our flight leaves to take us back to California (currently in Denver after a short trip up to Wyoming to visit Bryan's family).

I have a limited number of pictures of the trip, and I might have more time to post on the flight - provided the children find ways to keep themselves occupied that don't include my laptop.

But since I have some time and since the kids are currently busy reading (Penelope) and playing math games (Griffin), then I can recount this conversation we had in the car a few days ago.

Bryan was off playing golf with his dad and the kids and I were headed to Casper's Science Zone after having made a very essential pit stop at Starbucks (because altitude sickness sucks and Starbucks makes everything better... seriously about the altitude sickness though, I get it EVERY time we come up to visit and it makes me pretty miserable. I could deal with the nausea, but the headaches are crazy and are only dulled with pain meds).

So. In the car. Driving through Casper.

Penny: I love this day, it's my favorite! (she says this about every day though)
Griffin: No, it's not my favorite. (he was already homesick)
Me: So Bubby, what is your favorite?
G: (without pausing to think) Lego Batman!!!!!!!
M: Penny? What about you?
P: Art. I'm obsessed with art just like Bubby is obsessed with video games.
M: He sure is... so what do you guys think is Daddy's favorite thing?
P: Golf:
G: Hockey!
P: No, I don't think it's golf after all. I think his favorite thing is tickling us.
G: Yeah, that's his favorite.
M: So what do you guys think my favorite thing is?
P: Reading!
G: Snuggling.
P: Yeah, Mommy you like to snuggle a lot.
M: That I do... what about Grandpa, what's his favorite thing.
G: Watching us.
P: Yep.
M: Granny?
G: ummmm.....
P: Giving us kisses.
G: Yes, kisses and hugs.
M: What about Great Grandma Barbara?
G: It's when we visit her.
P: Yeah, she likes that a lot.
M: Harley-Quinn?
G: Seeing us. (which is partially true, but the dog's favorite this is really seeing our babysitter Alexis)
M: Granny & Grandpa's dogs?
G: Seeing us, they love to see us.
M: Really? My guess would be eating garbage.
P: Gross!

I was amused - mostly because everyone's favorite things seemed to revolve around them.

They had a good time in Wyoming though. And altitude sickness aside, it was a nice visit. Short though - but it's hard to find the time to get away and go out there. The plane ride to Denver isn't that bad, but the 4 hour car ride to Casper is exhausting. We might go out again this summer for Bryan's grandmother's 80th birthday.

We are all ready to be home though. Today was the Denver Museum of Natural History & Science with some friends that we haven't seen since we moved to Salinas (they used to live in Sac too, in fact Kim used to babysit the kids when they were little and we would often have playdates with them). It was really nice to see them - I miss so many of that group. We got to see some of the other regular play-daters when we were in Sacramento last weekend too. While I don't miss the city of Sacramento, I do miss the friends we had there.

 More later, I hope. I'm not teaching summer school this year so I'm hoping that I'll be able to blog more often than I have been. Hopefully we'll fill our summer with swimming lessons and trips to the beach. I'm looking forward to a real break.

Cousins and more pictures

Last year, just a few months after Griffin was born, Bryan's brother, sister in law, and their three kids came out to visit from Wyoming. We had a lot of fun. We went to Fairytale town, the beach, Second Saturday, and the pool. Penelope had a blast with her cousins and we were really excited to see how she and Griffin would interact with them this time around. The twins are 4 and Gadge is 7 so there's a bit of an age difference, but it's not too bad.

We were not disappointed. Penelope adores her cousins and so does Griffin. They had a really great time together. I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I would have liked, but I did get a few.




Griffin (13 months), Jesse (4 years), Kaylen (10 months), Gadge (7 years...going on 13), Penelope (2.5 years), and Arianna (4 years)




Bryan with Gadge and Griffin

Tree (our Sister in Law) was nice enough to keep the kids out of school for two days so we could spend as much time together as possible. It was really nice to spend so much time with our Rodgers cousins :)




Poe, Tree, and Ari

And now for some random pics of the kids.




Griffin and Penelope sharing an apple




Griffin at the Rodgers ranch. We didn't spike his hair, the infamous Wyoming wind did that.

Also? Penelope kept telling me "oh mommy, it's so windy!" or "oh no! The wind!" to which I replied "welcome to Wyoming".




This is her throwing a fit because I wouldn't let her play with the iPad.

And I think that is all for my Wyoming related blogging! I probably missed at least a few things, but that's at least the basics. It was a good, but exhausting trip.

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Location:Home, peacefully

One more Wyoming post

The kids are in bed and I am completely unmotivated to finish laundry. I really should...or I should break out an exercise video, but I won't. Instead I'll post this blog and inundate you all with Wyoming blog posts.

Oh. And I'm now up to 25lbs of weight loss. 15 left!

So let's see...I posted about the Science Zone, the mammoth, cows in road, and the gentleman's club, right? What's left?

Horses! What is a post about Wyoming without a mention of horses?

Dave and Debb have what I consider to be a lot of horses. One is Jill's horse, one is a boarder, and the rest are Debb's (if memory serves that means 3. I'm pretty sure there are 5 total). They also have donkey, George. We went out to the barn everyday to see the horses and George. If the weather had been nicer we may have attempted a ride, but Poe wasn't quite brave enough to pet any of them so I don't know how riding would have gone. I haven't ridden a horse since I was in Girl Scouts. I was pretty decent though, meaning I didn't fall of.

Here are some pics.




This is Debb's show horse whose name I can never remember. I want to call her Sensation, but I think that's the name of Jill's horse. I am terrible with names anyway, but seriously bad with horse names.

This next one is of George. The only reason I remember his name is because he's the only donkey.




He really wanted to see Penelope. She really didn't want to get close.

Here she is in the barn.




She really enjoyed looking at the animals even if she wasn't too keen on hands on interaction. I got to pet the horses though. It was fun to be so close. I do love them even though my biggest equestrian accomplishment is not falling off one.

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Location:Home

Cows!

Saturday (back in Wyoming) we left Casper and headed to Douglas to have dinner at B's grandparent's ranch. Although first we had lunch with Bryan's step brother, his 10 month old son, and Bryan's step sister. It was nice to spend some time with them, and the baby is adorable :) Jill, B's step sister, was nice enough to give up her room while we were in town so Penelope could have a bed to herself. Poe loved sleeping in Aunty Jill's room and constantly commented about how pretty Jill's ribbons are (Jill is an accomplished equestrian).

So lunch was nice. We got to catch up and I know Bryan really enjoyed the one on one time with his siblings.

I had hoped the kids would sleep on the way to the ranch, but alas they I'd not. That's ok, they would have missed this if they had:





Yup, that's right. A road entirely blocked by a herd of cattle. There were three real, live cowboys herding the bunch. Here's a cow close up:




I was driving, so I got to drive through my very first herd.

Oh! That day was the day for animals in the road, as we were leaving Bryan's dads house, some antelope decided it would be an excellent idea to run zig zags across the road.




So we got our fair share of wildlife.

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Location:The couch, at home