Visit From Dad

Most of our family lives in Michigan. Usually Todd's mom will come down once or twice a year, sometimes with his dad too. But it's been a couple of years since my dad has been down to visit.

He drove down the middle of last month after Emily got out of school. Emily was very excited to see her Pop-Pop, especially since he brought her a bunch of fun rocks. Emily has been into rocks a lot lately.

The first full day he was here happened to be my day off so the three of us went off to find rocks. We started off in West Asheville at the Asheville-Biltmore Gem Mine. Emily had a great time mining through a bucket of dirt and rocks to find treasures. She was especially excited that she got fool's gold! My dad was able to identity most of what was in her bucket and she got a whole bunch of rocks to take home with us.

From there, we went to downtown Hendersonville. Our first stop was the Mineral Museum. The museum was small but it was also free. There was a lot of rocks and even an exhibit on glowing rocks

The coolest thing was Emily getting to crack a geode to take home. They made a big deal about it and called everyone around in the museum to watch. But Emily was the one to help pull the lever down to get it cracked and of course, since my dad paid for it she got to keep it.

From there, we walked down the street to the Team ECCO Aquarium. It was a very cool little aquarium with lots of different kinds of fish and sea life. There was even turtles you could touch but Emily wanted no part of that. I touched them though, they were very cute!

We called it a day after that because we were all pooped. It was a lot of walking especially in downtown Hendersonville.

plus a dinosaur head!

The next day, we just hung around the house mostly. I ended up in bed with a bad migraine. We all went out to dinner but I ended up getting even more sick when we got home so I pretty much was out of it.

My dad's brother lives in GA so we had thought about all going down there for a day trip. But in the end, it was my dad and Emily who went for the whole day. I was still feeling sick so I slept a lot but Todd and I did get a chance to go to the movies. It was nice to just spend the day with my husband. That happens only a couple of times a year.

Dad and Emily got back late that night and my dad was starting to suffer from a pretty bad cold. He had planned on leaving on Monday and drive straight through but because he wasn't feeling good he decided to leave on Sunday, which was Father's Day. It was nice to spend a little time with my dad because I have't seen him on Father's Day in many year.

All in all, it was a pretty good visit. I wish I hadn't been so sick but it is what it is. Emily got to spend quality time with her Pop-Pop, which was mostly the point of the visit!

Palm Sunday and Family Time

 After our busy day on Saturday, it would have been nice just to relax on Sunday. But that didn't happen since I was up early on Sunday to get ready for church.

We are Lutheran and Holy Week is a big deal in our church. Holy Week starts with Palm Sunday and ends with Easter. This past Sunday was Palm Sunday and my choir was singing at the early service.

Everyone got to process in with their palms at the beginning of the service - Emily was very excited to wave her palm. Because Todd came to church, I got to sit with the choir which was nice.

After church, we left right away. Todd's Aunt Denise lives outside of Charlotte. Todd's cousin Mandy, her husband and daughter were down visiting. Since it's only a couple of hours drive, we wanted to make sure to see them while they were in NC.

It was great to spend time with family and to meet Kenzie who is now a toddler. Living in NC is great but we don't see a lot of our family because we haven't been able to get to Michigan for a couple of years now.

Emily and Kenzie played great together despite the age difference. While Kenzie was napping, I took Emily to the neighborhood park was only a few blocks away. They have the standard playground equipment including a merry go round, which none of the parks we frequent have. So Emily loves the merry go round.

I made the mistake of letting Emily push me on the merry go round. I hadn't bee on one in years and once I got off I had a migraine. Beyond that, we had a great time.

I ended up in bed as soon as we got home. With as full as our weekend was, I really over did it. But it was worth it to see family and have family time with just me, Todd and Emily.