grandpa ray comes to town

grandpa ray came to visit at the end of march. he has a fun tradition of taking 12+ year old grandkids on temple trips to do baptisms for the dead. he took lexi a few years ago and they made a stop by disneyland on the way. :) he gave christian the option to bring a friend and he brought his partner in silly crime, (they even developed detective alter ego's of "smithers and smithers") anthon.

here they are the morning they left. they went straight up to the washington dc temple for a 1:00 appt.

awww, mama loves her baby boy!

they stayed the night up in dc. they ate dinner at an old diner and somehow grandpa talked the boys into seeing an old alfred hitchcock movie (the vanishing lady) at an old art-deco theater.

the next morning they drove down to raleigh, nc and did baptisms at that temple.

the boys let me know that they "favor the larger temples."

men in black.

the next day they went to a whitewater training center where they had planned to whitewater raft, but it was too cold. so instead they kayaked, hiked, and climbed the rock wall.

(rock wall was the fave)

they had a good time. they came home with toy glasses, handcuffs, pistols, (smithers and smithers gotta be safe!) candy, sodas, and lots of stories. grandpa said he was glad christian was able to bring a friend. dogs behave better when they have another dog with them was his analogy. :) love it!

 

 we all had fun with grandpa. we took him up to target one day and bought some shelves for our mud room.

that was good, but also kind of sad because we had to finally give up on what we really wanted to put in there (a large wood structure with hooks and 'locker' type cabinets for each of us. she was beautiful.)

and just go with something practical. anyways, addie and frankie made a slide out of the box and addie even finagled a story from grandpa while sitting on said slide.

we dragged him with us for our monday ritual of walking to the library and then picnic at the park afterwards.

she's not been loving the swings lately! not sure why.

"this way gwampa!"

"oh, this way, gwampa, this way!"

they have a large, red handicap accessible swing there that addie loves! she sits her princess booty there and shouts out for people to push her. and she gets everyone to take their turns, including her little 2-year-old friends. that girl!

she's training for plumber school.

gwandpa treated us to cheeseburger in paradise for din-din that night.

and daddy treated frankie to her first taste of lemon.

this was after she shuddered for about 20 seconds.

then there was a family trip to target!

i <3 target!

she sometimes has trouble listening.

"addie stay with sissy! addie don't run! addie stop!"

at least she's cute.

purty sunset on our way home. i love that time of day! my daddy told me that in photography it's called the golden hour.

i <3 the golden hour!

we have a (bad) habit of taking babies out of their carseats when we get into our neighborhood. (the speed limit is 15 mph, we're super close to the entrance, and they are usually crying).

they loooove it!

and that was our fun visit with granpda ray. :))