Fall Break Visitors: Part 1

We were incredibly lucky to have not one, but both sets of grandparents visit us in October. Jim had a conference in West Virginia so they took several weeks and drove to see us, drove to the conference and then down to see Granny and Papa Smith in Georgia.
Jim made a dollhouse for Ella (according to her color specifications, if you will notice) and they had a fun time setting it up. He even made little wooden furniture! So cute! Ella admitted to us in the morning that the first night she had woken up in the middle of the night to play with it. It has been a very fun source of entertainment for her. I am very grateful that she is learning to play by herself. It's really neat to hear all of the little voices that come out of her room when she is playing with her dollhouse.

Brenda helped me tremendously by preparing meals to eat after Aubrey is born. I think we made and froze 11 dishes! They smelled very yummy and I am excited to get to use them later! She also helped stock our pantry. We made three trips to Sam's while they were here.
Jim had a business meeting in Boston, so we took a day trip and had lunch with our good friends, Shelli and Josh. Then we ventured down the coast to Plymouth. We didn't realize how long it would take, so the plantation was almost closed. We did enjoy seeing the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock.

We had fun exploring Yale and took them to our favorite overlook.

We ate at some tasty restaurants. Jim was on the search for the perfect clam chowder, so one night we drove to a nearby town and had some incredible seafood. I saw the largest lobster I have ever seen in my life that night. A table of FOUR was sharing that beast!

Then Jim and Brenda did something I'm not brave enough to do. They took Ella to Chuck E Cheese (or Chucky Cheesers as Ella calls it). Bless them. Ella had a wonderful time and Jimmie and I got to go to my Drs appointment by ourselves. It was glorious to both have Jimmie with me, and to not have to corral a three year old. That appointment was only like five minutes long of course (the ones with Ella have sometimes been up to an hour and a half!) and so we even got to enjoy some quiet time before the Chucky Cheeser gang returned.

We also went apple picking while they were here. We picked about 25 pounds of apples. It was fun and Brenda had fun making pies. We really like apples and there is nothing like picking your own. So yummy!

Thank you for coming to see us! We had a great time!