Parental Visit Highlights

My parents came for a visit this weekend.  Unfortunately, given economic circumstances (on both ends) and the distance between us, we don’t get to see each other as often as I’d like.  The boys kept getting more and more excited as “Bubbe-and-Grandpa day” drew nearer.  Finally, the day arrived and the boys couldn’t have been happier.  Here are a few highlights from their visit (in no particular order):

Wii Bowling

While enjoying some downtime at our house, we started up the Nintendo Wii.  My mother, who I never think of as a gamer, opted to play a game of Wii Bowling with the boys and me.  The end score was quite impressive.  (As usual, click on the photo to enlarge.)

“Snoopy” was my mother.  That 121 score?  That was JSL!  He was rocking the virtual bowling alley with two strikes and three spares.  He even beat his older brother (who came in with a not-too-shabby 113).

Beating Up My Dad

Ok, this sounds bad, but it really isn’t.  After Wii Bowling was done, we loaded Wii Boxing and I handed the Wiimote to my dad.  Then, he and I duked it out.  I won, but he got some good punches in.  I don’t think he expected a simple video game to give his arms such a workout.

Toy Story Mania

After coming back from lunch (and some shopping), we went back to my house.  Killing time before I had to start dinner, I put Toy Story Mania into the Wii.  This time, NHL, my father and I played.  We all had fun playing the various Toy Story-based carnival games.  For the record, I won easily.  Got nearly my father’s and NHL’s score combined.  Part of that was probably because, due to a quirk in the game, I got to play solo in a lot of games.  This gave me exclusive access to the point generating activities instead of sharing them with another player.

Knitting Bonding

My mother mentioned that she wanted to learn how to knit a scarf.  I pointed out that B has knitted a few.  At the time, she was in the middle of two scarf-knitting projects.  While the boys, my dad and I occupied ourselves with other activities, my wife and mother bonded over knit-pearl.

“Cooking” Dinner

I wanted to show my parents my cooking skills.  I didn’t actually wind up getting the chance to do this.  Instead, we went to BJ’s and bought frozen/refrigerated dishes to heat up and serve.  Still, eating dinner at home with my parents versus in a restaurant was a nice experience.

Cake Wrecks

I showed my parents the Cake Wrecks book and they kept laughing.  When I left it on the table to check on dinner, I saw them flipping through the pages laughing at all of the mangled cakes.  I need to remember to e-mail them the URL for the Cake Wrecks blog.

Cupcakes

We stopped by the new Fluffalicious store and got some delicious cupcakes for dessert.  It was quite the yummy stop to make (and one I think we’ll be making quite a few more times in the near future).

The whole weekend was so much fun that I (*gasp*) forgot to take photos!  We got photos of cupcakes and the like, but realized that we didn’t get a picture of my parents with the boys.  Luckily, just before my parents left to go home, we were able to snag this photo of us.  (B’s manning the camera – and trying to avoid cars in the parking lot it was taken in.)

I miss my parents already and hope we get to see them again sometime soon.