When we finally arrived at Grandma's house we went straight to work. Our intention for going up a day early was to help Grandpa work on our bathroom vanity and try to get that completed as soon as possible. Aleky is such a big helper; he tries to help where ever he can.
Since the vanity is now going to be a steel-frame the construction aspect of the vanity is beyond me. We're just grateful that Grandpa Petersen and Uncle Kyle are become skilled in the art of small steel construction. Since we couldn't help with the building of the vanity we did the next best thing...keep the kids occupied with fun activities. Cleaning of Uncle Kyle's go-kart was a great idea. We kept the kids busy for hours.
After a hard day of travel, errands, go-karts, and construction it was time to get ready for bed. It would appear that they haven't had the luxury of such a large bathroom vanity for a while now...
But let's face it, the kids were just too excited to go to bed. Even though it was already an hour past their bedtimes they didn't calm down. After another hour we realized that Friday night would be a perfect time to light our personal fireworks since the big show was on Saturday night. Since the boys weren't sleeping anyway, we got them out of bed and started our own little show.
The boys had a great time lighting their sparklers and running around the cul-de-sac, waving their sparklers in the air.
The adults seemed much more content to sit back and watch all the goings on.
Uncle Kyle was all to willing to help get this show on the road. He had some of his own toys that he had brought along as well.
After the fireworks were done it was nearing 11:00 pm and our boys were finally ready to go to bed. They didn't sleep long because they knew that all sorts of fun things were going to happen in the morning. So before 8:00 am they were all up and at 'em. At least they were quite for the most part, playing on the computer.The Grantsville parade started at 11:00 am so we loaded up the kids and headed over to the parade route at 10:45 am just to make sure we got good seats. Looks like we made it just in time to secure a prominent seat at one of the intersections and we got to be in the front row. We had to teach our boys to salute the flag as it came down the street. (I think we may still need to work on the location of the heart idea.)
I don't know if I remember a parade that passed out otter-pops but we sure were happy to get 'em.
After the parade we went back to Grandma's house. It was great. The parade lasted about an hour and we got there just 15 minutes before it started and were home in less than 5 minutes! Not only that but we got more candy than at Halloween (ok, maybe not that much but it was better than any other parade in our recent memory). The kids had to figure out what to do with themselves between lunchtime and the fireworks that night. Rock (and dirt clod) throwing is still one of their favorite pastimes. We just had to help them throw away from the house...
Meanwhile, Grandpa Petersen and Uncle Kyle went back to work on the vanity. Sometimes I think they do some of these projects just to have an excuse to play with their toys. (I know Kyle does for sure.) Here we see that the toilet paper holder is nearly complete.
Now Uncle Kyle is welding the vanity frame together.
And cutting parts for the top half of the frame.
While they continued to labor with the steel we wanted to get the kids out of the way. So we took them into Tooele to go swimming at their indoor pool. Their facilities were quite nice. They had the baby splash pool (where we took the picture). Behind us was the kids pool with a "lazy river", and water slide and some splash toys (not pictured). I was really impressed. There was a third pool for adults with a lap pool, diving area and a place for water aerobic, volleyball or basketball (just depending on who claimed the area first).
Sometimes I wonder about our boys and their desire to avoid getting wet. David finally got past that initial timidness and became addicted to the water slide. He discovered that he could go down on his own and that was all he needed to know. We really didn't see him the rest of the 2 hours. Michael, on the other hand, wouldn't get wet and threw a fit when we tried to coax him into the water. He spent nearly 30 minutes just sitting on the bench, wrapped in his towel. The other two boys (Donovan and Aleky) had a blast when they weren't too cold (for some reason they had the pool temperature very low that day). But it was a fun experience and I would go again.
After returning from the pool we sat down to an awesome BBQ rib dinner! I thought it was amazing but the rest of my family thought it was too spicy and didn't quite have the awesome experience I had. After dinner we only had a short while before it was time to head to the baseball fields to enjoy the local fireworks.Again, we headed over about 30 minutes early to secure an awesome spot on the field. The boys amused themselves by watching the other people light their fireworks. They did have trouble understanding that we couldn't relight our fireworks and kept wanting to get new sparklers or other fun toys. But they managed to survive.
Michael was even able to talk his way into getting a sparkler from Uncle Kyle who (somehow) managed to have a few more toys to light while we waited.
In the end we had a wonderful view of the entire show. It really only lasted about 30 minutes but it was the finale part of any fireworks show. Just one after another and they were some big fireworks. It was loud too but none of the kids seemed to mind. Once again, shortly after 11:00 pm we were able to get our kids in bed. Fortunately we didn't have to battle traffic coming home and we made it in less than 10 minutes.We dunked each kid for a quick bath, brushed their teeth and threw them in bed. In the morning we woke up, loaded up the car and headed home. I don't quite understand the relationship between awesome experiences and cranky kids. The more fun we help the kids have the more awnry and cranky they become. But the more restrictive and limiting we are the happy the kids appear to be. I can only guess at the reasons; if I know the truth I would be a much better parent.
Anyway, we had a wonderful weekend with the grandparents and it will be a treasured memory for some time to come. Of course the boys are already asking when we can do it again!
