Over The River and Through The Woods......

We hit the road literally over the river and kept driving through the woods to visit Grandma and Grandpa and my brothers this weekend. We have enjoyed the last 4 years being so close to my home town, a 2 hour drive sure beats 12 hours from Oklahoma or 26 hours from California. Zoe tells everyone her "best fwend" is her Grandma. She adores her! She follows Grandma everywhere talking non stop and Grandma is way more patient than me. She listens to all of her stories and puts up with Zoe being all over her. I must say when Tom is gone and I am single parenting--it is a much needed break for me because when Grandma's in the house you might hear Zoe say "what Momma?"

We got to my brothers house and met his new addition to the family--a little rat dog. As soon as Bay saw the dog she said "Mom she looks just like our dog Bear. Remember the one that you stepped on and almost killed?" Yes she is right and so that dog didn't last in our family very long. The girls were thrilled and rolled around on the floor with her until she sank her sharp little puppy teeth into Zoe first and then she brought Bay to tears also. It is so funny watching my big grumpy brother pamper this crazy little dog. Friday is always pizza night at our house so we had some pizza hut and I mean had some Pizza Hut! While Zoe was distracted we snuck out the front door and made a quick Wal-mart run for fabric, cause we were going to sew some purses. Well, 3 hours later we got home and did not feel like sewing at all so we surfed the web instead. About 2am I fell into bed thinking I had only 5 hours to sleep before Zoe woke up and then I remembered Grandma was the lucky one to be chosen to sleep with Zoe!! Yeah!!

Saturday we went with my dad to visit my Grandma. I love this lady so very much and recently she moved into assisted living. Although it is a very nice facility it is hard for me to go visit her there. It just doesn't seem right, not Grandma's house that I have so many many good memories of. As we walked into her apartment her sweet face lit up!! She was and always is excited to see us! After everyone was greeted with a soft kiss we sat and chatted. I had to fight back the tears several times. When she saw Bay she kissed her then just looked at her and she could not remember her name. This is hard for her too I am sure--here is a woman that raised 7 kids and has 24 grand kids and I don't remember how many great grand kids and used to be able to tell you every one's birthday off the top of her head. She told me about her two girl friends and showed me the exercises they are making her do and was very concerned about Tom getting a job and where we would move. I love to hear her advice so I asked her where she thought we should move. "Well, Chenoa I would think about the kids first. Where do they have good schools? And I would always look for a good church! Why do you want to move away?" We took lots of pictures and she wanted to make sure they were only from her waist up. (You see she is the one I got my bottom half from and us Van Cleave girls don't really like the JayLo look.) At one point I asked her "Could you please tell your son to start wearing his teeth?" She said "I think he would listen to you more than me!" And she turned to look at my dad and she said "Don't hold your mouth like that!" Instantly Dad moved his mouth. I said "See Grandma He still obeys you!" It makes me laugh, I guess you are never too old for your mom to correct you!! About this time the kids were climbing her walls so we had to say our goodbyes but she insisted on walking us down to the front door. Since her hips are not so good my sweet Bay offered to put her shoes and socks on for her and as I watched I cried. Tears of joy and sadness mixed. All the times that she has served us and put our shoes on and now we have a chance to serve her back!

We headed to the mall with a little pit stop at my cousin's dorm room. Dominique gave us the grand tour of his pad. Zach loves to hang out with Dominique and loved checking out his room. Chick fillet was calling my name to we didn't stay long. My heart started beating faster as we approached my favorite mall eve-- Jordan Creek. I love this mall it just seems to have all my favorite stores, but for some reason I never have enough time to check them all out. While we were sitting and eating my little brother said "Chenoa your nose is swollen! You better go get some sea salt and a different earring for that!" Well, I tend to be a little, hmm lets say dramatic when things like this happen so from this point on all I could think of is sucking my earring up my nose and it getting stuck. Crazy I know but you see that is why I am not a nurse because every patient I worked on I would think I would have the same illness! So my mission was to find a piercing shop and get this nose to stop swelling up!! I dropped the kids with Grandma and Grandpa for bowling and gym time and headed out to find me a piercing shop. When the tattoo man saw my nose he said "I have seen much worse--here is some sea salt to clean it with!" Mission finally accomplished!! With sea salt and Qtips in hand I rushed back to doctor my nose at Rowdy's house. Much to my surprise the earring had sunk all the way in my nose and as I pushed it out to clean it I thought I was going to throw up~~another reason I am not a nurse-I an pretty wimpy!

Sunday we were finally able to meet my littlest nephew Landon. He is so darn cute and chubby. Hudson is his 3 year old brother that just loved to fight with Zoe. We had a great day shopping and bowling again with Grandma and Grandpa and my brothers.