Still Catchin' Up.......Leavenworth

Here are some pics from our trip up to Leavenworth with my parents. It was so fun and all the credit goes to Rob for the fabulous idea and lodging arrangements. We had a blast. I can't remember the last time I saw both my parents playing putt putt golf and laughing at themselves. We had the best German food, surprising I know, and we enjoyed all the amenities of the Enzian Inn. Golf, swimming, racquetball, basketball, hot tubbin, a featured piano player for the evening, Bavarian breakfast buffet, ....even a morning horn player complete with liederhausen which unfortunately we missed. But we will definitely stay there again.

We hit the shops while Rob and the boys went to the fish hatchery. Can you even imagine the disaster Carter could produce in small shops filled with collectibles, glass, cuckoo clocks, and small trinkeets! Yah, he was definitely not coming along.

Okay wait, I need to go back to the beginning. My parents stopped to visit us after their trip to the Oregon Coast. They came the Saturday night before Mother's Day and stayed with us until the following Thursday. The day they arrived we went out to dinner and the entire time, Carter was hooked on Grandpa. He kept running back and forth around the table wantingeither "papa" or "dada." Me and my mom couldn't catch a break, which was fine with me. It was so cute though, he just loves being with the guys I guess. After dinner and later that night, we thought we'd watch a movie and Rob insisted that we needed snacks even though we had candy bars and ice cream. "But we need some popcorn, hon." So he threw a football to Spencer and if Spencer caught it I'd go to the store, but if he dropped it, Rob would go. Well, Spencer caught it so off I went for popcorn, oreos, and licorice.
-Ya know I should have known something was up, but Rob is just too good when it comes to surprises.....Anyways, so I get home, put Carter to bed, and it was getting pretty late, so I said lets watch Dan in Real Life (an absolute classic, love it so much!) and Rob says, yah, put it in. ----So I don't know it yet but I'm about to open my Mother's Day surprise!!! ....I go to open the doors to the entertainment center and there's this black box sitting on top of the tv. ( a Playstation2!) and to the sides of the tv are one box on each side ----Guitar Hero!! Oh my do I love my husband! Ever since our spring break trip, I have been trying to find someone who has this so we could borrow it and jam out a little. And I've looked on ebay, craigs list, ksl for a package deal on the set. ----I am completely addicted! I will literally be listening to the radio and can hear just the guitar part and can picture myself playing it to Guitar Hero.
After all this excitement of talk I guess Rob had been looking and planning this for a good month. He got a good deal and I got Guitar Hero! plus a whole bunch of other games, so you can imagine what we've been doing late at night almost every night since. I know it's pathetic, but we've held off buying a gaming system for so long because Rob was in school and we knew that as soon as we bought one, we'd never get anything done. So my ironing stack is almost as high as the top of the bookshelf, the bathroom hasn't been cleaned for awhile, and you can just imagine what the rest of the house looks like, butttt I'm gettin' pretty good at medium level, Rob's been called up to the Big's in MLB 08, and NBA Jams is kind of fun too. Yes that's right we're hilarious parents addicted to PS2. I think we've watched tv once this whole week, which is amazing for us. So anyways, that was my big surprise and I loved it, obviously.
Mother's Day was wonderful. Rob made us all breakfast and he makes the best breakfasts! He also made me a candy bar bouttenniere (how do you spell that!) for one of his mutual activities and I proudly wore it all through church. Surprisingly it stayed together and Carter didn't rip it apart during Sacrament meeting. Lots of people thought it was so cute and yummy.
Spencer sang songs with the Primary after the meeting and did a great job. ----there was a bit of trauma during the singing......I didn't know the kids were singing as it wasn't on the program. Rob says he told me they were singing and it was Spencer's big surprise for me, but I for some reason don't remember him ever saying this, so I was in the foyer with Carter cause he'd had it. Debbie tracked me down in a frantic saying that Spencer was having a fit because I wasn't in there and they were about to sing. I dashed in to my seat, waved to him, but he was already worked up. And to make matters worse, the little boy standing in front of Spencer had started a pushing match, and Spencer WOULD NOT GIVE UP HIS POSITION! He wouldn't back down, puffed out his little chest and would not budge! Me, Rob, and my parents were trying to signal him to move over, but he would not (he's so stubborn) Things were nearing melt down. The little boy didn't mean any harm and even turned and gave him a hug after the last bit of shoving. But Spencer had finally had it. His face turned red and the tears started to come. I was a bit upset that the Primary ladies sitting on the front row hadn't done anything up til this point, but finally one turned to me, and I said will you move him next to Martin?! She did and he was okay after a bit. Sad, huh? What do you do? I replayed this in my mind, but knew that if I stood up he would have had a major melt down, and the mother of the other boy moved to the front bench and told him to stop pushing, so in my expert opinion, either something should have done immediately at the beginning with the boy pushing Spencer, or else they should have removed the other boy after the damage had already been done so he really knew that he'd done something wrong and not my poor tenderhearted Spencer who was so excited to sing to me all week!
Spencer wanted to go home after they were done, but luckily Rob took him on a walk and got him to go to Primary. THe rest of the day was great. I made dinner. My mom was a good sport. It probably wasn't her first choice, but she was a good sport and ate it fruit and all. (she does not like fruit) It's one of my favorites, and they really liked it barring the pear, apple, and raisins. I know it sounds weird, it's called savory italian stew, and it's just scrumptous. It has stew meat, potatoes, sweet potatoes, bell pepper, zucchini, squash, onion, the fruit, and some spices. Maybe I'll post the recipe later. I highly recommend it.
I gave my mom a sour cream lemon pie. It's like tradition and I didn't want to let her down. We enjoyed a relaxing day and finished it off with a rousing game of The Farming Game.
I had to work Monday, so it was pretty uneventful. Tuesday, my parents watched Spencer at his swimming lesson then came down to catch the end of my tennis lesson, which was fine until my dad whipped out his camera, came on to the court and took a few pictures. Gotta love parents! Some things never change.

Okay so I'm a little out of order, but after this, was our trip to Leavenworth.
Whew! I think I got it all.

We love it when Grandma and Grandpa Harris come to town!