A Visit with Grandma

My Mom came out from California for a week long visit. It was the last week of summer vacation for James, and a nice way to end the summer for him! I wanted to keep her visit pretty low key and only planned a couple of "major" things while she was here.

I had kept our backyard project a surprise for her. When she visited last summer, the backyard was a mess and totally unusable, so I was eager for her to see what we had accomplished! She was amazed to see what we had done and quite pleased. Her first evening here, the four of us enjoyed a campfire. Being a "big city" girl all her life, she had never experienced a campfire, so this was very new for her!!

Here are Nana Nancy (or Grandma....we tend to go back and forth between "Grandma" and "Nana"!!) and James enjoyong Grandma's very first campfire!!


The following day, we planned a BBQ with family and a few friends! It was a perfect way to celebrate our new backyard and have Mom see people here all at once!! We are so excited about being to entertain!! Our house is so small and entertaining has been very difficult the last 13 years. The yard gives us extra "living space" as well as a place to have people over.

A few pictures from the BBQ......

This is Dusty's sister, Vonnie and her husband, John! I think that it's one of the best pictures taken of them!


Our friend, Angela, made and presented my Mom with her very first smore!!! She loved it!!


All of the kids roasting marshmellow around the campfire. We had a smore-making frenzy going on for a few minutes and the kids kept going around to all of the adults to see if they could make smores for anyone! It was fun!!


Then on Tuesday, we took Mom for a ride. We went up on the Grand Mesa for the afternoon and took a picnic. Grand Mesa is "the world's largest flat-top mountain" and is only a 45 minute drive for us. One of the most visible landmark in the valley, we see it daily, but rarely get up there. It was a nice day.....the weather was pretty. We stopped at the visitor's center, so that Mom could learn about the area, and then headed over to Ward Lake for our picnic.

What a perfect place to hang out and have a picnic!!


My Mom said she wanted to eat our Olathe Sweet sweet corn EVERY day she was here, and so we obliged her request! She loved it and didn't seem to get tired of eating it, even every day!! Having corn in the house at this time of year isn't hard! It often shows up at our door, without our knowing really where it came from!! Plus we're growing a couple of short rows in our own garden!

This is the "Corn King" of Riverside Drive!!


One of the evening, we had Dusty's Mom come over for dinner with us. Here is James with his two Grandma's....Stella and Nancy! The three of them get together so rarely and I cherish this picture!


And one picture of my Mom with James!!


We were glad to have Grandma here with us for the week! As soon as we put her on the plane, James started to get excited about starting 4th grade. Today is day 4 of the first week and he seems to be settling in well. He really likes his teacher and I get to meet her tonight at "Back to School" night! The old routine will soon again become familiar!!