Quick Getaway!

**Warning: This post has a ton of pictures. I would apologize, but I worked so hard to document our visit that I'm not sorry at all, just thrilled with all the cute pictures I got. :)

Jim had to go to Washington this week. He had to leave Sunday afternoon and isn't coming home until Wednesday evening. I had planned on staying home, but at the request of Jules decided to run down to my mom and dad's for a quick visit. I was just planning to hang out at my mom's house, but it turned out she had the Monday off!!!

Sunday, we dropped Jim off at the airport and then drove down to Long Beach to visit my Grandma Snowball. The girls were really good at her house and we had a nice time chatting and playing and eating candy! Then we went to my parents' home for dinner. We had yummy soup and homemade rolls for dinner and then cinnamon rolls for dessert! We watched our Sunday show ("From the Top at Carnegie Hall") and made the dough for sugar cookies.

Monday we got up and had a fairly slow morning (it was cold and rainy). Mom wanted to take the girls to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch. They were thrilled. Lizzie has been talking about Chuck E. Cheese a lot recently. If she sees it, she'll say, "Look Mom, there's Chuck E. Cheese! That's where Tala had her birthday!!" The aforesaid birthday occured almost two years ago and we haven't been back since. The other funny thing is that she never asks to go, she just comments on the fact that it's where Tala had her birthday.

Here are some pictures from our fun lunch. The girls just thought it was the best thing EVER!!! It really was cute to watch them play. Miriam favored the rides, but once Lizzie realized the games gave tickets that's all she wanted. She didn't even care how many tickets she got, even one was fun!
Miriam loved this car ride and went on it a bunch of times. We always put Rachel in it to give our arms a break from holding her....she is HEAVY!!!
They also loved the clock ride. Miriam would say "Bye, Mom!!" on her way up and then "Hi, Mom!" on her way down. Lizzie was just excited to hold her tickets.
Air hockey was hilarious. My mom first played against Lizzie. On her first shot, she knocked it into Lizzie's goal. Opps!! She had to try harder not to score after that. When Lizzie played Miriam, Lizzie scored 6 goals first. Miriam became familiar with the routine of getting the puck out and putting it back on the table. After she scored her first goal and heard the puck go in, she looked for it on her side!

There was a lot of help from the referees. We kept saying, "Hit it harder!!"

Grandma B was a trooper and took more than her fair share of time holding Rachel. I hope you're not too sore today!! Rachel was also a trooper and hung in there way past her nap time and lunch time. She thoroughly enjoyed chewing on pizza crusts too.
In the afternoon we baked our sugar cookies. Dad cooked the bacon to perfection and we shared our favorite dinner (chocolate chip pancakes) with Grandma, Grandpa and Auntie Jules. They were very impressed. We also got to talk to Jim in the evening. Lizzie was practicing her multi-tasking, evidently it can still use some improvement. Before bed we frosted our cookies and enjoyed the fruits of our labors!

Tuesday morning Rachel was having a hard time going back to sleep after her 5am feeding. So I put her in bed with me and she settled right down. Since Grandma B actually had to work that day, she was up and got the girls started with a movie. I ended up sleeping until almost 8am! It was a miracle. There was no rain or traffic today on our way home, which was so nice. Now we are just looking forward to Jim coming home tomorrow afternoon.