Good Times in March and April with our Delightful Family in the Northern States

On March 28th I flew to Minneapolis to visit the Lee family for a long Easter weekend.  It didn't take long for Sophia to warm up to me.  We kept busy and went somewhere every day. 

 

 We went to the local zoo.  I'm not sure Sophia understood the concept of looking at the animals, but she had fun toddling around.  Sophia doesn't look very excited in this picture! 

 Sophia chillin' in her car seat with her cute boots.

 Sophia hanging out with most of her favorites: hat, binky, blanky, stuffed kitty, and milk.

 We went to St. Paul and toured the mansion of James Hill, one of the early owners of a railroad company.  The home cost almost a million dollars when it was built over 100 years ago, so it was very large and fancy inside.

 Sophia did pretty well on the tour, considering her age and desire to run around!

We took Sophia to the Easter egg hunt at the the apartment complex where they live.

 Sophia likes to help in the kitchen.

 We dyed Easter eggs,

 then had an Easter egg hunt. Sophia caught on to the concept of looking for the eggs pretty quickly.

 The Lee family after church on Easter Sunday.

 A three generation shot. 

 Here's Sophia looking at the "Colors" quiet book I made for her on her first birthday.

 Chillin' with her cool sunglasses on our way to the Mall of America.

 Sophia and I keeping ourselves amused while Mommy was trying on clothes at a store in the Mall of America. ( It's kind of hard to tell what we're doing, but I'm taking a picture into a mirror.)

 I believe it was Sophia's first time going on amusement park rides.  It didn't take her long to get the hang of it and think it was lots of fun.

The Mall of America is close to the Minneapolis airport, so after we went to the mall, Adri dropped me off at the airport to fly to visit Garrett and Krystal's family in Minot, ND.  They still had an amazing amount of snow on the ground, considering it was April! 

 Makayla was only about seven weeks old the last time I saw her, so she's changed a lot.  I enjoyed getting to know her.

 The first time he saw me Daniel hugged me and said, "Hi Grandma".  It's nice when they're old enough to remember you between visits!!

 Daniel is a cuddly little guy--one of his favorite spots was curled up on his daddy.

 Makayla isn't quite old enough to be a good playmate for Daniel yet, but she will be soon.

 It was neat to see another generation of Carsons using the coffee table to hold on to as they learn to walk.  We had this table when our kids were young and gave it to Garrett and Krystal when they were first married.

 We watched all four sessions of General Conference.  I thought this was a sweet picture of Makayla and Daniel watching Conference. 

 Every child seems to love sitting inside things, and Makayla is no exception.

 One of the few times Makayla let me hold her.  She mostly just wanted her mommy.

 Daniel and I went for a walk to get the mail in the snow one day.

 Makayla was quite delighted with the "Johnny Jump Up"

 Such a wonderful little family.

 This was the first picture of the kids with me that we took.  In subsequent photos Makayla is starting to cry and reach for her Mommy.  I didn't take it personally.  It isn't too many years before kids figure out that Grandmas are pretty nice to have around.

Daniel cuddling with Daddy again.

 Daniel certainly liked having me around and the extra attention he got from Grandma!

 In all I spent five days in Minnesota and five days in North Dakota.  It was delightful to visit both families, and the time went by much too quickly.  It's amazing how fast the grandchildren are growing up!

Good Times in March with Our Delightful Family in the Southern States

March started off with my (Elaine's) trip to Texas to visit the Stinsons. 

 Lissa, the girls and I took a trip to the mall, and Kiera and Savannah had fun trying on sunglasses.  (Yes, that's Savannah's shoe in the background.)

 In the mall there was a carousel, which the girls really enjoyed.  They got to ride it once with Grandma,

 and once with their Mommy.

The little train that drove through the mall was pretty fun, too.

I thought this was a cute shot of Kiera and Savannah sharing a drink with their Daddy.

 A couple of weeks later on March 20th, Kent and I drove to Alabama to attend Tyler's graduation from Army Aviation training. He's now trained to fly Blackhawk helicopters. We're very proud of him!

 The day after his graduation we went together to Savannah, Georgia, to spend a couple of days.  The weather was colder and wetter than we anticipated, but other than that it was a fun trip.  The spring flowers were in bloom, including the azaleas,

 and the wisteria.  (Two of my favorite flowers.)

 We were there on the weekend of the Savannah Tour of Homes and Gardens, so got to go inside and see lots of big, lovely, old homes and their gardens.

 Unfortunately, we got caught in a rain shower as we were waiting in line to enter one of the homes.

 But it cleared up by the time we went down to walk along the river.

 Here we are in one of the city squares that Savannah is famous for.

 This is another view of a city square, and I thought it showed the feel of Savannah with the Spanish moss in the trees and the horse-drawn carriage with tourists on a city tour.

After attending church in Savannah on Sunday, Tyler and Rachel returned to Alabama and Kent and I drove to Charleston, South Carolina, to spend the night. We went to the Fort Sumter visitor's center, famous for being the place where the Civil War officially started.

Like Savannah, Charleston was also full of large, lovely old homes.

 

One of the places we went in Charleston was the place where gun powder was stored back in the early 1700's.  I usually think of Charleston as it relates to the Civil War, and don't remember that it was one of the cities around before the Revolutionary War.

 Kent misbehaved on the tour and got thrown into the stocks. 

 This cemetery with the Spanish moss in the trees looked like it would be pretty spooky at night.

Even our trip was in our usual whirlwind style, we had a good time and especially enjoyed the historic homes and lovely spring blossoms.