Santa Clause.....uhm....I mean OPA JED is coming to town!!!

We were so excited to have Opa Jed and aunt Connie fly in from Ohio to spend a few days with us last week. For the visit we put Elizabeth in our bedroom and let the three older girls sleep together, so that Opa Jed could sleep in Victoria's bed. The girls were very anxious and pretty upset when I told them they couldn't come to the airport with me, because the plane would be coming in way after bedtime. Victoria was very concerned and questioned me about who would "tell Opa Jed everything he needed to know" about her room (I guess there was some important information she didn't trust I could properly relay to him about appropriate use of her bed, stuffed animals and dresser). And yes, of course he had to sleep with Victoria's very own special princess pillow :-) Hey, he is the Opa of four granddaughters, so he might as well get used to it now, right?

We had a great time visiting and running around doing fun stuff. The first day we went to the carousel in Missoula and of course convinced Opa Jed and aunt Connie that they couldn't just watch, but actually had to get on the horse to have the full experience. I don't think they believed me when I said they were gonna hold on for dear life (it IS one of the fastest carousels in the United States, you know....), after all how fast could a little kids' carousel really go, right? Well, Opa Jed was dizzy after just one round and got off with Elizabeth, who seemed a little freaked out as well. After a few more rounds we went home to play with the toys Opa Jed had let the girls pick out. Josie and Katie both picked the same barbie "dog wash" (you know, like the "Poochie boutique" in Missoula), Elizabeth went with a green singing leap frog bear (not "frog"), but Victoria picked a remote control motorcycle! It took her about five minutes to figure out that even more fun than chasing her little sisters with the motorcycle was to let it jump off the stairs from our second level hallway. She would let the poor guy on the motorcycle crash and burn and then run down there to hug him and whisper:"Oh oh, I'm so sorry, honey, I just don't know how to stop the motorcycle yet."

We also went to the farmer's market where Connie bought 5 different kinds of garlic that she send home to herself in a package, while Opa Jed fell in love with all the specialty cheeses. We had fun playing at Dragon Hollow playground and cooked up some delicious bison burgers that night when Torrey's parents Dave and Sharon came over to hang out. Before they left they even got to take the girls to school with me and see their new building and meet teacher Linda and teacher Gena.

Turns out Opa Jed has some mad skills when it comes to reading books to the girls. He was very good at pretending that he was just as excited as they were to read "Dora the Explorer at the dentist" for the 17th time. Even though we did a lot of fun stuff, my favorite moment was seeing all the girls piled up on their Opa in Victoria's bed, getting a kick out of him making funny voices while reading to them.

Have fun checking out some of the pictures I took during the visit and leave a comment if you feel so inclined (also if you don't feel so inclined, because really that's why I'm blogging, you know!!).