Visit with my parents

Doesn't Garrett look thrilled?

I've mentioned visiting with my parents last week a couple of times now, so I figured I would post about it and share some pictures.

As you already know, they came to Oklahoma for my mom's family reunion and then followed us down to our house on Sunday, the 13th (which is my half birthday.) (Yes, I'm weird for pointing that out.)

On Monday morning, Keith headed off for work, my brother Jesse and his girlfriend Sarah headed off for our other brother's house in Lake Jackson (about 5 hours away). Keith called about 20 minutes after he left and said that his truck had broken down on him. His truck has never done this before and it has 250,000 miles on it. Seriously. He does a lot of preventative maintenance on it in order to avoid having problems with it on the road, but of course we knew eventually something would happen. I looked up a wrecker service close to where he was and the wrecker driver drove Keith and his truck back to our house. As soon as Keith got home, he tested the fuel pump (my husband is a mechanic when he feels like it, but an accountant the rest of the time) and figured out that was the problem. He's been super blessed because most fuel pumps only last 100,000 miles and his has gone more than double that!

Anyway, he didn't have time to work on it at that moment because he had to be at work for a meeting. Since Jesse had taken the only other vehicle at our house (besides my SUV of course), I drove Keith to work so my parents and I could go places if we needed to.

After Cooper took his morning nap, my parents, the boys, and I all went to eat Mexican food. You can't find good Mexican food just anywhere and we happen to have some great restaurants around here. (Funny story moment: while sitting in the restaurant, eating chips and salsa and waiting on our food, my mom pulls out her camera and tells Cooper to say "Cheese!" He turns to her, puts his hands behind his head and smiles as if he was intentionally posing. A waiter nearby saw what happened and told us that he's a photographer when he's not waiting tables and that he had never seen that before from a kid so young. haha I'm sure it was just a fluke.)

Once we were thoroughly stuffed, we headed to Walmart. I needed groceries and birthday party food. It was nice to grocery shop with not one, but two other adults along with me to help corral my children. I normally do it solo and Cooper is terrible lately about throwing anything he can get his hands on. So my dad took Garrett with him to hunt down some things he was needing, my mom put Cooper in his stroller and looked for things she needed and I actually grocery shopped by myself. I don't remember when the last time was that I got to do that! Ah, the little things in life that make moms happy.

Keith's boss brought him home from work that night since he doesn't live too far from us. After we put the boys to bed, my mom, dad, and I all helped Keith take the bed of his truck off and put it in the yard so Keith could reach the fuel pump better. That was hilarious and I wish someone had taken pictures of us lifting that thing. It was heavy!! He got most of the work done, but wasn't able to completely finish it that night, so on Tuesday morning, everyone got up bright and early, left our house by 7:30am. We dropped Keith off at work, then went out to breakfast at IHOP and went over to my grandparents' house for a visit.

Eating at IHOP

After visiting with them for the morning, we all went to my aunt and uncle's house for a yummy BBQ lunch and more visiting. Later that afternoon, we left to go back to Dallas and pick Keith up from work. Driving in downtown during rush hour is truly one of my favorite things. It was made even more memorable with my dad saying from the passenger seat "You just keep your eyes on the road and I'll watch the GPS." haha I will always be a 16 year old who barely knows how to drive in his eyes. :)

That night we attempted to help Keith put the bed back on his truck, but it was a no go for the original 4-some that took it off to start with. It's one thing to lift something ridiculously heavy from waist-high and take it down to ground level. It's a whole other animal to attempt to lift the same heavy object from ground level and bring it up to your waist. Thankfully our neighbor was home and he is more than capable of helping with this project, so my mom and I were relegated to making sure the bed wasn't banged into the cab of the truck while the guys all heaved and ho-ed and got it back in place.

On Wednesday we went to lunch at Schlotzsky's. My parents don't have one in their area, and they love their sandwiches. After lunch, we went to Target and then Mardels (a local Christian bookstore). I got my dad to point out some things he was wanting so I could get him his Father's Day present. Then we went to pick up Cooper's birthday cake. My friend has been making all of our cakes for years and we've never had any communication problems on the date and time for when the cake was to be picked up.

But there's a first time for everything.

I could tell when we pulled into her driveway and she wasn't walking out with the cake, that something was up. I've only had to actually knock on her door one other time because she's always been waiting on me with the cake when I showed up. As soon as she answered the door, she had a panicked look on her face. She had thought I was picking the cake up the next day and didn't have it ready. Thankfully the party wasn't until the next day, so it didn't matter. I just wanted to save myself having to drive 20 minutes one way to pick up the cake on the day of the party. But everything obviously worked out. She's entitled to mess up every now and then. :)

For supper on Wednesday night, my mom made fried chicken and gravy and I made rice, biscuits, and a veggie to go with it. (Normally we would have had mashed potatoes, but all of the potatoes were spoken for in the potato salad for the party.) It was so yummy! I've only made fried chicken a handful of times in my life and I've never made homemade gravy. So Keith was quick to point out that he doesn't get to eat like that very often. (Though I make supper at least 5 nights a week, those suppers tend to be steak on the grill, chicken in the crockpot, tacos, etc. Nothing fried in a pan because it's too messy and hard to do very often.)

On Thursday morning we cleaned and decorated for the party, then we headed out to buy a couple of last minute things. Then I took my parents to a local restaurant that serves the BEST catfish. They make it with a cajun seasoning, so it's on the spicey side, but it's so good. My parents loved it. Garrett usually eats 2 pieces of catfish there and these are big pieces! So it's not too spicey for him.

Then we went to pick up the cake and she was ready for me this time. :)

The rest of the afternoon was spent party prepping and visiting with early partiers.

My parents left really early on Friday morning to make the long drive back home. (Oh, and Jesse and Sarah came back to my house on Thursday afternoon before the party.) We actually said goodbye to all of them Thursday night before we went to bed. Normally I would try to get up and see them off, but from everything that went on that week, I knew I would be too tired to get up at 5:30 and I didn't want to risk waking the boys up early either.

It was such a fun visit! We always love spending time with them.