~Vaca at Moms!~

Absent? no!; Busy? Yes! We've been running steady since we left home for Moms. We got to spend time in St Albert with Mike for a couple of days and enjoyed a day of shopping and had a nice dinner at Olive Garden. Lots of great conversation as usual and a great time. We trekked out to Ft Saskatchewan to see my friend Chantel and kids. We got to see their new house that they just moved into and hear about the future plans they have for it. Great time! Of course we didn't pull out the camera though...

From St Albert we headed to Grandmas' house in Hardisty. Ethan got to hang out with his Auntie Helen and his cousins Geana and McKenzie who were visiting from Calgary. We had a couple of days hanging out with them before they headed home. Then on Thursday my sister Christine and her boyfriend Dwayne came to town for a few days from Ft McMurray. Dwayne was curling in the Oilmens Bonspiel so they kept busy with that but we did sneak in a quick visit. Thursday night my best friend Melissa came to town for a visit. She was such a sweetheart that she took a vacation day on Friday from work to come visit with us. It was such a GREAT visit. She left her boys home with Mike and her and I just visited nonstop. We spent the time in Moms living room gabbing and gabbing. Saturday we headed to Vegreville to see Grandma Grounds for a few days. She was excited to see Ethan and how much he's grown. She wanted to spoil him rotten of course but I told her to wait until his birthday! She had a houseful of puppies again of course. She has 5 Shihtzu puppies and one Poodle-Shihtzu cross puppy for sale. If you are interested in a dog send me a msg and I'll hook you up! Anyhow we stayed there until Monday afternoon then came back to Hardisty. My sister Christine was still here so we snuck in another visit.

Let's see, what else have we done? Oh yeah, I almost forgot!!! I got to cuddle a new baby! My niece Kristin had a baby boy, Zachary James the day before I got here. So I went over a cuddled him for a few hours the other day. I got a little crazy and said something about wanting another myself....but we aren't going there today!

That pretty much brings us to today. We've done other things of course but that is the highlights of the trip thus far. My sister Mary is on her way here today with Cole for a weekend visit.

Anyhow, love my new phone! I didn't even bring my camera, I'm just using the camera on my phone this trip. I also figured out that I can play Youtube videos on my phone. Why do you care, you might ask? Well...Ethan is addicted to Baby Einstein Beethoven movies...so I can play them on my phone for him! Let me tell you how handy that is! If you've ever seen a kid watching those movies you'll know that they generally sit still and stare...so it's useful in many situations where there is patience needed. Priceless I tell you!

Of course this post wouldn't be complete without pictures...

The first ones are of Ethan and his second cousin Paige playing at Grandmas' Paige just turned 1 on the 20th so she's only a couple of months older then Ethan. But she is double his size! They had fun playing and it was fun for me to see because it's the first time Ethan has interacted with any kids his age.

Also there are pics of Ethan cuddling with me on the couch, snuggling with Grandma on the couch and sleeping with one of Grandmas's stuffies in the playpen. The giant alligator came from Ikea...the first stuffie that I bought Ethan. So cute I tell you!