June visit from Grandma, Aunt Nancy and Gus

The last weekend in June Grandma Groves, Aunt Nancy and cousin Gus came to visit. Grandma Groves came on Wed. night. Her flight from Florida was a little late. Isabella and I killed time by eating dinner at the A&W down the road. Isabella was less than thrilled with her hamburger, but couldn’t get enough of the French fries. She’s been on a French fry kick lately. We picked up Grandma and headed home. We were very excited that she was going to be here for a whole week. Thursday morning we had part 2 of our family photo shoot –a gift given to us by the Pathways staff. Jeff couldn’t attend as he had work to do, but my main goal was getting pictures of the girls and with Grandma there to help things went smoothly. After the shoot we took both girls to daycare (Evelyn started going part-time that week) so that we could go pick up Aunt Nancy and Gus from the Moline airport that afternoon. As the day went on, their flights got more and more delayed and canceled, etc. They were still sitting on the runway in NYC by the time we were supposed to be picking them up from the airport in Moline. Not a good situation. It sounds like Gus was really good throughout the whole thing. Grandma and I finally picked them up sometime between 9 and 10 that night. The next morning (Friday) Gus and Isabella got to see each other. Isabella was a little shy at first but it didn’t take long and they were playing like old friends. I think the first conversation I heard between them went like this:

Gus: Be nice

Isabella: Say please

It is so nice to see how much fun they have together.

We decided to head to the beach at Coralville Lake on Friday morning. When we drove in the admissions guy told us that we didn’t have to pay because there wasn’t much beach there because of all the rain. There was a little strip there, enough for Gus and Isabella to play in, so we went ahead and got out all of our stuff. However, we were being horribly attacked by bugs. They weren’t biting us, but they were all just landing on us and were very annoying and gross. The more you swatted them away the more that seemed to land on you. It didn’t bother the kids too much, but every once in a while one of them would go “Bugs! Bugs!”. We managed to make the most of it, though. After research back at home, Nancy determined they were mayflies or fish flies, that really only have a life span of about a day and we just happened to be there that day they all hatched!

That afternoon my Uncle Ron and Aunt Judy came to visit. They’d been in the area here from Michigan for a Corvair conference so it was so great to have them visit.

On Sat. Grandpa Groves came to visit. We all went out to lunch at the Vine. We were hoping to be able to sit outside, but the weather had just been too hot. Later that afternoon we got out the wading pool for the kids to splash around in. They had lots of fun and Gus taught Isabella how to lay in the water and kick her legs.

On Sun we went to the play area at the mall. Grandpa Groves came to visit again after he ran the Sturgis Falls ½ Marathon. He came in 3^rd in his age division! He brought Gus and Isabella some medals.

Evelyn enjoyed Aunt Nancy wearing her in the Moby.

Monday was my first day back at work. Grandma and Isabella took Nancy and Gus to the airport. It sounds like Isabella was on her best behavior during their adventure. It was sad to see Nancy and Gus leave.

Grandma Groves stayed until Wed. Isabella and I took her to the airport. Isabella wanted to get on the plane and go home with Grandma.

Gus seems less than thrilled with me in this picture that Grandpa took.