Christmas, Part III: Carterville

We hit the road Christmas Day and headed to my hometown for our third and final holiday celebration. It was a fun weekend of eating, sleeping, and grandchild-spoiling.

Surprisingly, I was without a camera for a few events (shocking, I know). Allow me to reenact them for you.

Our longtime neighbors welcomed a new addition, and I got to sneak across the street to hold the sweetest little 2-day-old baby girl.


I spent Saturday afternoon hanging out with childhood friends Beth and Tara. I love having friends you’ve known for so long you can’t remember not knowing them.


Andy and I took advantage of free babysitting and went to see Avatar in 3D. Holy crap, you guys, it was the coolest-looking thing I’ve ever seen. Okay, so Andy said the plot was basically Dances with Wolves, and some of the dialogue was so cheesy I laughed aloud at inappropriate times, but the special effects were incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it.


Luckily for you I had my camera out for the majority of the weekend. Here’s what else we did.

Henry and Eleanor were very excited to see more presents waiting for them at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. We told the kids we had to clean up after supper before we opened them. Henry stood right by the table and the minute the last dish was cleared he yelled, “It’s clean, Grandma! Let’s open presents!”


We decorated Christmas cookies, adding way too many sprinkles and then eating our creations.




Andy and I ate a lot and slept a lot and mainly stayed out of the way of the lovefest that is Henry, Eleanor, Grandma and Grandpa being together. Honestly, I think we could have disappeared and the four of them wouldn’t have noticed. It makes me so happy to see the grandparent/grandchild bond in action. Especially when that bond allows me to sleep in and sneak off to movies.

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Hometown Highlights

Kids and I are back from our trip to my hometown. We did all the usual stuff that we usually do on our trips home. Lots of playing outside (in the yard and in the park)(wow did we ever have beautiful weather), feeding the fish, lots of grandparent kisses and snuggles, hearing “oh they’re JUST TOO CUTE” a billion gajillion times.

We also went to the barber for haircuts for Henry and Grandpa, went out for ice cream, and my dad and I watched the Salukis make a basket with a half-second on the clock to win the game.

When we were on the final leg of our trip Henry told me, “take me back home Carterville please.” And when Andy asked a grouchy-all-evening-and-now-crying-for-no-reason Eleanor if she were crying about her grandma, she sobbed, “yeeeeessssss.” If only my kids loved their grandparents.

Some photos of all the fun:

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Carterville, Again

Kiddos and I recently spent another week in my hometown. These visits are always a 24/7 lovefest between grandparents and grandchildren, which is exactly why we do these extended trips. Henry and Eleanor got spoiled while I relaxed and swam in the neighbor's pool. I had a nice lunch at a favorite pizza place with childhood friend Tara. We took the kids to Dairy Queen for the first time, which might not seem like a big deal, but when you're from a small town, the DQ is a BIG DEAL. It was where we celebrated after almost every school event and little league game. So of course I had to snap a few photos of their first DQ soft-serve.



Here are a few other photos from our week home. We do this trip often enough that I'm running out of ways to show and tell it, so here, I made the photos all fancy-like for you.

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Flesworthy Family Fun: Memorial Day Weekend (FINALLY)

So. Memorial Day Weekend. Seems like a long time ago now, doesn’t it? I’m still going to tell you about it, though.

On Friday night we headed home to southern Illinois. We of course took Henry and Eleanor to Carterville with us, but I came home feeling like I had enjoyed a nice child-free getaway for three days. With Henry and Eleanor preferring to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa, and Grandma and Grandpa preferring to spend time with Henry and Eleanor, Andy and I could pretty much come and go as we pleased. It was woooooooonderful. Saturday was spent lounging at our neighbors’ pool, reading in the sun and enjoying the first (and second) (and third) (and fourth) swim of the year. We took an impromptu trip to the movies to see Terminator, which was good but not as good as Star Trek. (And can I just take a second and tell you how awesome that last sentence is? After not being in a movie theatre since 2006, I have now seen enough movies in the past month that I can compare them.). We ate pizza at Quatro’s and replenished our yellow plastic Quatro’s cup supply that everyone from southern Illinois is required to have. Andy read two books, and I spent an afternoon visiting with my childhood friend, Tara.


My sister came home, too, and Julie and I spent Monday morning driving around town to see the storm damage, with a quick detour to the thrift store downtown, where I scored a purse and a SIU t-shirt that were free after Julie bought them for me. Even after a few weeks of clean-up the storm damage is still pretty overwhelming to see. My neighbors’ ring of tall pine trees surrounding their yard is now a row of stumps. Huge piles of brush are still stacked waiting be hauled away. It seemed like every house has damage, whether it’s a dented gutter or missing shingles or a tree through their house. The most heartbreaking thing for me was seeing the big beautiful tree down at the cemetery. That tree was a big reason we chose to bury Sam and Emilie where they are—they are directly in line with it and it always provided a comforting view. Now it’s just a pile of really, really huge logs, which totally sucks, for lack of a more eloquent way to phrase it.



But back to the lovefest between my kids and my parents. To Eleanor, it was as if Mommy and Daddy ceased to exist whenever Grandma was around. Eleanor is like a little curly-haired moon orbiting her grandma—she’d venture away from Grandma’s side for a few minutes, but then the grandma-love gravitational pull would rein her back in. Henry was content to lounge in the recliner with Grandpa, and both kids talked all weekend (and most of last week, too) about how Grandpa woke up from a nap and gave them kisses. Henry and Eleanor played with the new wiffleball bats Grandma had waiting for them, fed the fish, blew bubbles, dipped their toes in the pool then ran to Grandma to dry off their toes, sat at the window to watch the birds, and soaked up the attention of two people whose love for them almost eclipses Mommy and Daddy’s.

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Carterville, As Told By Mommy

Henry, Eleanor and I had a nice time in Carterville last week, especially Henry and Eleanor, who were spoiled/told how great they were/told how cute they were/kissed and cuddled for pretty much all of their waking hours. Some highlights of our week:

A batch of nice weather at the beginning of the week, which let us enjoy the outdoors. We visited the park, commandeered the neighbor’s swingset, ran in the yard, drew on the driveway, rode on tractors, and giggled at the fish in the water garden.

A visit to the airport to look at the planes. Henry and Eleanor got to sit in Grandpa’s plane for the first time. I think Henry was ready to take off and go for a ride.

Visits with friends. We dropped in on family friends Leon and Vickie, oohing and aahing over their beautiful kitchen remodel. I got to attend Mom’s quilting group in her place. And I got to visit with childhood friends Jeremy and Rebecca and FINALLY meet their gorgeous daughter, Eve. Hopefully I’ll see her again before another two years pass.

Witnessing the love between babies and grandparents. Henry and Eleanor loved being rocked and snuggled. Grandma and Grandpa patiently read Henry’s “choo-choo book” (The Little Engine That Could) all of the 728175 times Henry requested it. I was standing right next to Mom, and Eleanor approached us to be picked up and held, and of course chose her Grandma over Mommy.

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Carterville, As Told By Henry and Eleanor

SWING!


SLIDE!


MORE SWING! SWING!


FISH! FISH! FISH!


ROCK-A-BYE BABY!


MORE FISH! FISH! SPLASH!


CHALK! DRAW!


TRACTOR! DRIVE!


SKATE!


MORE TRACTOR! MORE TRACTOR!


MORE ROCK-A-BYE BABY! CHOO-CHOO BOOK! MORE CHOO-CHOO TRAIN!


AIRPLANE!


MORE PLANE! MORE PLANE! AIRPLANE!


NO! NO! NO! NOOOOOOOOOO! NO! NO! NO! NO!


GRANDMA! GRANDPA!

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