A wonderful weekend.

Bailey and I headed here this past weekend:
Where is here, you say? Grandma and Grandpa Butler's house. Who else do we know has a colorful purple door as her entrance to her garden? Isn't it the cutest thing ever? Of course, not only is it adorable and colorful, it also keeps the deer out her garden. Cute and clever!

Bailey and I decided it was time for a visit. So we just invited ourselves up. Haha. I don't think they minded too terribly much. :) Originally, Carcerys Vale had two shows: one on Saturday in Marysville and one on Sunday in Modesto. (Last minute, the Modesto show got cancelled). Thus the reason for just the girls going. We figured the boys and Shawn would be plenty busy over the weekend, and it seemed the perfect time for us to go up on our own. We even left Roxy home, which was weird, but also a nice break. We headed up Saturday and got there around noon.

Grandma and Grandpa have put up a wonderful sized above ground pool. It's about 20' across. Just the perfect size for cooling off and swimming around. Bailey loved it.

Grandma doesn't know how to swim, so she uses the noodles to "swim" around the pool. It is quite apparent from the look on her face that this is very peaceful and soothing to her. I loved watching her enjoy herself with Bailey.

Bailey had her giggling the entire time. So grateful to be able to spend this time there with them.

Grandpa got in on the action by teaching Bailey how to fill the noodle with water, and then force it out by mouth. Kind of like a water gun. She tried and tried to get the hang of it, but couldn't get the water to shoot out very far. Grandpa continued to spray she and Grandma with water, and finally Bailey got smart and just splashed him back. Good girl. :)

Drying off and sunning themselves (for a few minutes) afterwards.

Sunflower in Grandma's garden. There's always something wonderful to photograph up there.

She stuffed us silly, as always. Forget about dieting while you're at Grandma's. It just isn't going to happen. Haha. For lunch, she whipped up some chicken salad sandwiches. They were so good. I'm getting hungry just thinking about them. For dinner ... oh my. Do you see those four steaks there? Crazy huge, I tell you. And then she also did big 'ol shrimp on the bbq. Actually, Grandpa did the bbqing. Grandma and Bailey did the prep, and I took pictures. (Always, right?)

I think Grandpa did this while the girls were prepping food. Haha. He was tired from keeping the pool clean.

After dinner we made carmel/chocolate dipped apples. Fun and tasty.

We also played Mexican Train (dominoes). Have you ever played? We had not, but we enjoyed it so much. I will definitely pick up a new set of dominoes so we can play it again. We then watched Australia with Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. Aside from the movie being extremely long (so long, in fact, that there were several occasions where I thought it was over and it just wasn't) ... it was a beautiful movie. Good story, with a good ending. We went to bed around 11:30pm.

Day 2: Breakfast in town at The Waffle Shop, a little shopping around (Dollar Tree, Claypoole's, Safeway) looking for some fly swatters, BLT's for lunch and more swimming, of course.

Oh there I am. I knew I was there this weekend. :)

The best picture of the weekend. So sweet.

Bailey and I both had a wonderful visit with Grandma and Grandpa. We are grateful and happy for our time spent with them.