This weekend couldn't have been better!

On February 26th my Mom and Dad came to visit for the weekend. I really wanted to show them all the terrific flowers that have sprung up everywhere. It rained and rained and rained. Did that stop us from having such a great time? NO! Of course not! Besides showing them all the pretty flowers I really wanted to take my Dad specifically to the Mormon Battalion in Old Town. The church just recently renovated and restored it and it is beautiful! I'm really glad they got to see it before the renovations so they could see what a difference it was after. This time we got to go through the tour as well and that was pretty neat. Here are a few pictures from our day.

Emma dressed in uniform that the men would have worn on their long trek.

These touch screens are interactive and so cool.

Mom and Dad loved looking up family members that served in the Mormon Battalion. Another cool interactive touch screen! This stuff rocks!

Emma panning for gold!

The whole group. Poor Brent got kinda washed out!

After the Mormon Battalion we went to check out a couple of shops in Old Town. It was raining but I had to get a picture of these pretty flowers. I loved that they had water droplets all over them. Click on the picture and see it closer up!

One of the shops we stopped in was the Temecula Olive Oil company where they have oil and vinegar tastings. Emma wasn't impressed! Her face cracks me up! I thought they were pretty cool. Guess I was alone in my opinion.

Another stop we made was to the mineral and rock shop there in Old Town. Emma has been really into rocks for awhile so we broke down and let her buy a geode. They told us at the shop that the rock should break open pretty easy and it did. Later on that night Emma broke it open all by herself. It makes a great addition to her collection!

This video is of Grandpa showing Emma how to pan for gold. She had a few different times where the two of them sat talking and learning and I realized after watching this video how much she really was listening to him. Later after they left Emma told me that she was glad Grandpa loved rocks like she does. I hadn't remembered that MY Grandpa Ross loves rocks too and so seeing them talk and share makes me really happy that we have given her the opportunity to explore her fascination with rocks and minerals and that she has such a huge thing in common with other family members. We ordered a scholastic book a few days ago for her to learn more about rocks. She's pretty excited about it. I'm excited she's excited about learning!

The time with my parents is never long enough for me. I go into withdrawals when they leave. I can talk with both of them or one on one for hours on end. Mom and I have such a great time just being together and goofing around. Before we went to the battalion we got totally lost because we went to find candy and then we went to find water because we had forgotten to buy water and got totally lost! It was so much fun! On the way home on Saturday Mom and I wanted to be alone together and so Emma drove with the boys. At one point during our drive it got raining so hard that I couldn't see at all in front of me and pulled off to park until the rain calmed down. We sat there visiting more like best friends than mother and daughter and I became really aware of how incredibly cool that is. So many of my friends have a hard time with their parents. I am so blessed to have such a great relationship with both of mine! I miss having them closer but am so again blessed to even have them as close as they are. Thanks for coming Mom and Dad. We had the best time and I can't wait for Emma's baptism to see you again!