The Visit

Sean's folks left today. We had such a nice time seeing them. We'll be seeing quite a bit more of Rich in the near future. You see, we won the lottery you might say. He has a government job and his position down in New Mexico was cut leaving him looking for a job. Unfortunately there weren't any other positions for him where they live so he started looking elsewhere in the country. He specifically looked for jobs located near his children. For instance he applied for a position in Washington (near where Nate lives) and somewhere near South Dakota (where Jeremy lives). He also applied for a job near us and got it. So they purchased a travel trailer and pulled it up here and got him settled for his job that started this week. He'll be living in that while Randi keeps the home fires burning down in New Mexico. As much as we will love to see him when he comes up for weekends, we all hope this isn't a long term situation and can find government employment back at home. But in the mean time we can't wait for Grandpa to visit.

Randi stayed with us for six days and we enjoyed every minute of it.....well almost every minute of it.  You see, Randi brought her dog, Hildi. Hildi is a one year old shepherd mix that I've been hearing about for some time. Poor Hildi had a rough life before Rich and Randi came along. She was abused among other things, leaving her with some trust issues. Oh I'll just be blunt, she is one of the most neurotic dogs I've ever seen. Sweet dog, just neurotic. On the first night here she went upstairs to sleep with Rich and Randi in the spare bedroom. She'd never been on stairs before and went up but wouldn't come back down the next morning. We tried everything to get that dog down the stairs. She'd plant those giant paws and you couldn't drag her. She'd freak out like a cat in a bath if you tried to pick her up (she weighs 70 lbs). Oh and I haven't mentioned the best part. She pees when she's nervous. Did I mention we just got new carpet throughout the house? Yep, she got "nervous" in four different spots in the spare bedroom during this whole ordeal. sob. We finally got her down the stairs after practically tossing her down them and she never went back up, staying in her crate downstairs. After all that she didn't really like me much the rest of the visit. Imagine that.

Once we figured her out, she had a nice visit. She played great with the two big dogs but tried to murder poor Chance the terrier on more than one occasion. She's welcome back, just not welcome on the new carpet.

Friday I had to run to the pet store to get a hamster for Jessica's daughters birthday (Yeah I'm that awesome person that gives live animals as presents....insert evil laughter). Randi was nice enough to come with me and hold the little rodent on the trip home. Maybe you had to be there but the look on her face was priceless. She just kept praying the rodent wouldn't pee on her and/or chew it's way out on the 25 minute ride home.

Granny Randi was nice enough to watch the kids on several occasions while Sean and I escaped. Oddly enough we never escaped together. Sean took off to pick up his newest project (more on that later) and I took off to go to the gun range and get a movie in (Hunger Games was pretty good). Sure wish Granny Randi lived closer. :) Wesley was in hog heaven with an active Angry Birds audience.

Greta made Randi read her favorite book Mr. Silly Pants to her at least 75 times. Poor Granny Randi.

Upon further review we've discovered where Miss Greta's "crazy" hair comes from. What do you think?

Friday we got a call from Dru, our family friend, saying he was in town. We invited him and his girls out for a cookout. We had a nice full house with Sean's folks, my folks and Dru and his family. His oldest is the same age as Wesley (birthday is two days earlier) so they all had a blast together. It was sure nice seeing them all.

So I'm officially back to an empty house. It's sad. The kids are back to being bored and I'm wishing we all lived closer.