A Visit From the Minnesota Five - Abbie, Landon and Noah this one's for you!

We just enjoyed a GREAT visit from the Minnesota Five. It's tough to choose between the photos so perhaps I'll just post all one thousand of them. Not.
Part of the purpose of their trip (other than giving me a grandkid fix) was for Mike to spend time with a few oral surgeons along the Wasatch front to assess the possibility of setting up practice here in Utah in a couple of years when he's done with his residency. I can only hope.


The first thing the kids want to do when they get here is to go for a dip in "Papa's pool" which is actually our hot tub. After hot tubbing, they hop into "Papa's tub" for a mega bubble bath and then into "Grandma's shower" to get all the bubbles off. When they're good and wrinkly and we've gone through at least eight towels, it's time to dry off and get dressed! We never vary from this water-logged routine!



Everybody's all shiny and clean and ready for lunch with Granddad McKasson (Erin's dad) and a couple of Erin's brothers. See ya later guys!

We have a cheap week at a Marriott resort in Park City every year. I guess the last week in October/first week in November is not a hot ticket for most people . . . the pretty leaves are fairly much gone and the snow hasn't flown yet for the skiers. However it worked out great for us with Mike and Erin's family and also our local kids. Below is a photo that I took out the condo window . . . Brent spent a bunch of time with the kids in the big heated pool and the hot pools over the three days we spent there. All of the adults played a night time volleyball game in the big pool while I watched the kids.
Lucy Jayne and Noah Michael getting acquainted with each other. Lucy is three months old and Noah is almost a year old but they'll be in the same grade in school.

Mike and Noah watching one of many baseball/football games that got watched while we were in Park City. Mike, Jordan and Scott got Brent involved in their Fantasy Football league. Thanks guys . . . I really appreciate it. Not.

What's better than reading a book to the grandkids? It looks like I'm really into the story and Landon isn't. I wonder what he's watching on TV?

Jordan's birthday was a couple of weeks ago and Noah's isn't until the first week in November but we decided to do a belated/early birthday celebration. Noah managed to get into the frosting before we sang happy birthday.

Being as this was a FIRST birthday celebration for Noah, we had to do the tradition of turning him loose on his own piece of cake. This was the result. He LOVED it! Erin and I did paper/rocks/scissors to see who had to clean him up and I lost. However, Erin cleaned the kitchen so I think in the long run I got the best deal!

We have a long standing tradition, in our family, of attending the annual Warren Miller ski film together. A few years ago the film was in town on my birthday so that's what we did for my birthday celebration. Even though it's never been in town on my birthday since that time, I still call Warren Miller night my birthday celebration because I want my kid's to think that celebrating my birthday is very cool! If I associated my birthday with, say, the ballet or symphony, it just wouldn't achieve the same result! Anyway, Warren Miller happened to be showing in Park City on the Friday night that we were there, so I opened my "birthday season" early and got tickets. They made me buy full priced tickets for EVERYONE, including the babies (lame) but since we didn't have anyone to babysit that was our only option . . .

That was money well spent, don't you think? Four sleeping grandchildren. They didn't even make it to intermission!

Oh well . . . we really had a great time and the film just rocked, as always.

At least Scott, Rachel and Annie stayed awake.

Not sure when I took this one of Abbie and Noah but it was too cute not to include.

Annie and Abbie having fun taking pictures of themselves. This was Annie's favorite thing to do when she was a little kid. It works well in this age of digital photos but back in the day when we had to purchase film and developing, it got a little expensive!

The granddaughters.

Noah's smile just warms my heart. He has big, blue eyes like his sister and brother.

I watched these two by myself for a half hour or so while Laura took Abbie and Landon to the video game arcade. We did great until they both got hungry at the same time. Yikes! How do people with twins do it? Haley and Aaron . . .?

We checked out of the condo and said good-bye to Park City on Saturday afternoon and then everyone went to BYU to watch the Cougars get shellacked by TCU except me and Abbie, Landon and Noah. Instead, WE went to Arctic Circle for square pumpkin kid's meals and then to Pack's pumpkin patch in Farmington. We had a great time!

Abbie sitting on a pumpkin that probably weighs two times more than she does.

Landon and Abbie "driving" the big red tractor.

Abbie and Landon each got to pick out a BIG pumpkin so we got a couple of jack-be-littles for Noah to pose with. This was one tired baby by the time we got home. I popped everyone in the tub, then into jammies and then we watched Charlie Brown's Halloween before bed. A right jolly old time!

The next day, the Minnesota Five had to leave to go home . . . as always, I hated to see them go. But this Christmas they'll be back and we'll make Christmas cookies, and decorate a tree, and watch Charlie Brown's Christmas, and read Christmas books, and maybe make a snowman . . . I can hardly wait!