Visit from Grandma Cox and Uncle Destin

My mom and brother decided that they should drive from Delaware to Utah by way of Minnesota. :)  It’s a bit of a detour (6-8 hours I believe) from going straight through, but what grandma would pass off the opportunity of seeing her grandkids?  They left Delaware at 6am on Sunday and got to my house a little after midnight.  As Stephen had school on Monday and Tuesday nights, we decided that we’d go out to lunch both days my mom and Destin were here.  After lunch on Monday (in Eden Prairie) we went down to the Mall of America because my mom wanted a new pair of shoes (and there are endless shoe stores there) and wanted Destin’s help in picking out a pair. Destin is good at all things artistic, including fashion.  We managed to succeed and even got back up to Samantha’s dance class mostly on time.

Samantha at the mall was a hoot.  She tried on every single pair of shoes in the store.  Actually they weren’t even pairs.  She would take down any shoe she could reach, take off her boots and put on the display shoes.  She would then go to the mirror and turn her foot to look at herself in the shoes and see the back of the shoe.  And then, when she was done, she’d take them off and put them back exactly where she found them and move onto a couple other shoes.  She was completely complacent to leave the store since we’d be going to ANOTHER shoe store.  Her favorite store was Clarks where she tried on shoes and purses looked at herself in the mirror and said “you’re a pretty princess” and even gave herself kisses. 

On Tuesday we went to lunch in downtown Wayzata.  At both lunches Samantha very studiously sat and colored with the paper and crayons the restaurant gave her.  She’s mostly in the lines now too.  On Tuesday we gave Clara a piece of bread to try.  She LOVED it, and chewed on it the entire hour we were there.  It was a crumbly mess where she was but I think she ate most of it.

 

Stephen had to go back to work after lunch, but we went down on the dock since the restaurant was right by Lake Minnetonka.   I tried out my photography skills with the camera in Manual settings.  First we did some yoga on the “banks of the Minnetonka”

 

Some running

Destin helped Samantha NOT fall into the water as they were watching the ducks

 

A train came by while we were on the dock and I really wanted to try a slow-shutter speed shot so you can see the train in motion.  I didn’t have a tripod so I couldn’t put it too slow.  But I managed to get these two shots, which I think turned out rather well.

After hanging out at the dock for a bit, it finally started to warm up!  (Hooray for that afternoon sun!)  We went to the classic tourist spot in Minneapolis: the sculpture gardens.  And we did the classic playing with perspective photos. 

Samantha holding a cherry

Samantha didn’t have a clue what we were doing I just kept telling her to hold her hand up higher.  Then we tried to get her to “lick” the cherry, but she just kept jumping towards Destin and I couldn’t get a good shot.

 

Mom holding up the cherry while in Warrior 2 Pose

 

Here are a couple more pictures at the “swing” sculpture.

 

 

 

 

Samantha was saying some pretty funny things.  But one of the funniest was when we were trying to explain the family relationships (you know grandma is my mom, and uncle destin is my brother).  Amongst all this Destin told Samantha that she’s his “niece” which she promptly bent down and said “my knees are right here” [pointing to both her knees]

It was great to see Destin and mom.  Too bad it couldn’t have been longer.  They left Wednesday morning and made it to Utah a bit after midnight.  Now mom gets to start all the preparations for my sister’s wedding in April!