Visiting Grandpa O & Grandma J

 We made it to Grandpa Orin and Grandma Judi's house late in the afternoon.   We settled in, visited, and had a bit of supper.

Afterwards, Grandpa Orin showed Ramsey some old antique guns that have been in the family for a while.  Ramsey was ecstatic!

Ramsey knew what models they were, but Grandpa showed him all of the different pieces of the guns and how they worked.

Ramsey had to practice his stance with the gun (unloaded, of course!).  

After a good night's rest, we ate a great homemade Sunday pancake brunch and hung out for a while.  And, Grandpa Orin gave Ramsey a ride in the golf cart.  

Riding wasn't quite good enough for Ramsey.  He had to race.  He won, but it might have been s a mercy win!

Then, G&G showed us all of Grandpa's treasures in the shop.  They have a few large rooms full of collected items - mostly antique tools.  There were a lot of super neat things.

We went for a drive to the outlet mall and sight-seeing, then out for supper at a great Chinese place. Yum!    After supper, we visited more and Ramsey got some snuggle time in with G&G.

Ramsey brought his gun history encyclopedia on the trip, so showing it off to Grandpa Orin was a priority.

Grandpa listened intently while Ramsey talked about his favorite guns, plus various "fun facts" about world war history.   Grandpa offered his knowledge and opinions as well and they had some good conversation on the topic.  😊

I had originally incorporated the visit with a work trip (two birds, one stone!). Monday was the day I had to be on a job site for one of my projects.   The original plan was to stay with Grandpa and Grandma for a few more days and fly home on Thrusday.   

But... a new weather report came out that there was a large storm system coming, sweeping the midwest, mainly the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Illinois.  If we stayed, it would mean we might not make it home for another  6 to 7 days.  With my work schedule and Ramsey needing to get back in school (he'd already missed a LOT of school this year due to illness), we made the tough decision to change our flights and leave early.  😥

On Monday morning, we had a good breakfast, chatted a bit, and then had to say our goodbyes.

The goodbyes were tough.

But, I guess "some" time with G&G was better than none at all.

Ramsey and I drove to my job site.  I completed my construction walk-through with a general contractor and my crew.   Ramsey remained in an office, door closed, with his Kindle.  When my site survey was completed, we had our first meal at Chick Fil-A. Yum!

Then, off to the airport again.   Ramsey had fun on the moving walks, going back and forth.  I'm glad he still had so much energy!  My pep was depleting.

Our first flight from Columbus was delayed, due to weather and airplane issues (yay - more issues!).  While in the waiting area, there were "rumors" of the impending system; it was supposedly bringing wicked terrible winds and freezing rain.   I'm not going to lie, I was very unsettled!!    After a few hours of waiting, the plane finally arrived and we made it safely to Minneapolis. 

In Minneapolis, we had another rather lengthy layover, but Kindles and snacks made it more bearable.  Ramsey was a serious TROOPER and still had plenty of smiles!

I had smiles when we finally got settled on our last plane ride home.  We arrived at the airport around 11:30 that night.  It was COLD and yucky at home, but it hadn't yet started to snow.   

By the next morning, the wind had picked up and the snow was flying (more school snow days!).   We'd made it just in time.  And, incidentally, if we wouldn't have left when we did, we wouldn't have been able to get home until Sunday at the earliest, as the Minneapolis airport was shut down for DAYS.  It could have been later, due to the amount of people who were being rerouted/rescheduled.  Ugh.   Leaving early was a bittersweet decision.

After we had unpacked, Ramsey wanted to ensure that he had a good spot for his Junior Officer sticker he received at the Columbus airport, plus the gold wings he was given on the second flight to Ohio.

They are proudly displayed with Eric's law enforcement challenge coins and pins on the custom flag shelf in the hallway.

Ramsey's First Airplane Ride

 Oh, another FIRST for Ramsey... first trip in an airplane.  Wahoo!   We'd planned a trip to see Grandpa Orin and Grandma Judi at their home in Ohio.   Our flight was to leave around 7AM, so we were up REEEEEEALLY EARLY.  Oye! 

Ramsey did GREAT going through Security. He had everything all figured out and knew what to remove from his suitcase and where to scan things.  I was a usual chaotic spaz, having packed too many things that had to be taken out and viewed.  🥴

When it was time to board, Ramsey was OFF and running, leaving me in the dust on the jet bridge.  I have other pictures, but they are ALL blurry because he was hustling so fast.

We had games and Netflix shows downloaded onto his Kindle to make the trip fun.

There was some sort of "issue" on the plane that had to be "looked at".  That's always fun to know and try to explain to a small child.  The tech was dispatched and had fixed the issue in under an hour.  And, they also deiced the plane while we waited. 

Ramsey was starting to get nervous as the plane started to move.  Then, the lights in the cabin went off and it was "go time".

Too bad the lighting couldn't have been better.  Ramsey LOVED take-off and thought it was "perfect"!

We had to move QUICKLY to our next flight.  With the last delay, we didn't have much time. We had two more quick flights; one from Minneapolis to Detroit and then from Detroit to Columbus.   

On Flight 2 from Detroit to Columbus, the flight attendant gave Ramsey a nice gold pair of wings. He was elated and put it on his sweatshirt.  When we landed, he was allowed into the cockpit to meet the pilots and check out the controls!  Even better! 

When we arrived in Detroit, we had a bite to eat and waited for the last flight to Columbus.

Ramsey got a kick out of watching planes taking off and landing.

When we arrived in Columbus, we hopped in the transport van and rented a Nissan 4-door. Ramsey got to pick... he wanted "the cool fast black car".

Then, off we drove to Grandpa and Grandma's house to stay for the week!

Cabin Family Vacay

This year, we were one family member short for our yearly family vacation at Nana and Bumpa's cabin; Connor had two summer jobs and was unable to take even one day off.  We missed him!!!

We stayed for about a week and enjoyed time with Nana, Bumpa, Uncle Troy and Auntie Sarah, Uncle Cory, Sadie and Isaac, and the puppies (Max, Bailey - hiding during every photo opp, and Riley).

So first... the puppy pics!

It took a little while for Jango to get acclimated with the other pups again, but once he did, they played quite a bit.  And... when they got tuckered out, they laid like broccoli.

Now... onto pics of time spent with Nana and Bumpa!

Chillin' out on the back patio, playing with Kinetic Sand.

And inside, sitting on Bumpa's lap, playing Star Wars and chatting about heroes.

Bumpa has a nice raised garden out back with lots of delicious raspberries and strawberries.  The strawberries weren't ready to pick, but there were a ton of ripe raspberries.

And... lots of swimming of course!

Jango retrieved his duck while we swam.  And, if Ramsey got too far out, Jango would try to "rescue" Ramsey.   This is actually how Jango jumped off the dock for the first time; he thought Ramsey needed help and jumped right in!   We continued to throw the duck for him while he plopped off the dock to retrieve it.  Sidenote: He did this for ONE DAY.  The next day, he had decided he didn't want to jump off any longer (most likely because he hadn't quite gotten the hang of it and sunk right away before coming back to the surface).

I blew up the water trampoline (OMG that took forever!) and Daddy sandbagged it and put it in the water.

Ramsey and Eric played a game of "Swamp Monster" too.  Incidentally, Ramsey wasn't as thrilled when lake weeds were placed on his noggin!

While Isaac and Sadie were still at the cabin, we had to go tubing!  This was Ramsey's FIRST TIME tubing.   I was grateful that his nice cousins were there to help Ramsey be brave.  :-)

We promised Ramsey we'd go really slow. 

We trolled for a little while.  Bumpa gradually bumped the speed up.

When Ramsey would do "thumbs down" as to ask to decrease the speed, we'd all just wave at him and smile. hehe  

After a nice long ride, Ramsey seemed to be about "tubed out", so we reeled him in and let Isaac and Sadie go for a speedier ride.

They did everything in their power to try to get dumped.  The Big Mable isn't a "dumping" kind of tube though!

And now for some fishing pics....

A cold front had come through over the weekend.  It finally started to warm up more on Wednesday.  Eric, Bernie and I went out and caught some nice keeper fish.

In the evenings, Eric and I went out to try to slay during a night bite.  The views were gorgeous!

Evening 1 was beautiful and proved to be productive, given the weather was just starting to turn around.

The next evening, storms were rolling in around us.  The picture doesn't show it (at all - weird), but there were two rainbows behind me.  Stunning!

Admittedly, as the sky was dark, I was a bit uneasy, but Eric assured me we wouldn't get strike by lightning and die (ha!), so we stayed out.  And, we hauled in with a nice catch.

Our time at the cabin always seems to fly by so swiftly.  It's wonderful to be able to see family and spend our much-needed time away with loved ones.