4x's the Fun

One grandparent is good. Four grandparents are fantastic!
I scored huge last week when my Nana and PopPop from Vermont came for a visit at our house at the beginning of the week and then we flew to my Grandma and Grandpa's house in Utah at the end of the week! There was no end to the entertainment, story readers, activities and LOTS and LOTS of spoiling. I loved it!

My PopPop is a good athlete and quite the competitor so I challenged him to several games involving both athleticism and brains. He and I teamed up for a fierce game of Go Fish against my dad and Nana. I'm happy to report that we blew them out of the water and felt no guilt at all. Soccer was a different story. I gave him the smallest soccer ball, trying to put him at a disadvantage. Unfortunately for me, he's just that good. My dad even resorted to pushing me down several times to try and win. But alas, PopPop prevailed in that sport.

We also took on word and picture matching cards. I think the point of this game is for me to practice my letters, but my dad turned it into a race and tried to match them faster than me. I didn't know what the picture of yarn was so he took advantage of my lack of knitting knowledge and crushed me at this game. All and all, it was a fun fun visit.

Then it was off to Utah. As our good luck would have it, the snow started falling and kept falling throughout our visit so we had incredible ski conditions. When we weren't skiing we were playing in the snow. They had to keep an eye on me because when I fell over you couldn't see me anymore because the snow was so fluffy and deep. I loved having my dad toss me into the snow. I'd land like a brick and be completely stuck until someone dug me out - it was awesome.

Grandpa shoveled out a sledding track for me in their front yard. I followed close behind and supervised his operation. Check out my sledding skills. When I wiped out - which was often - I would roll as far as I could and see how much snow I could get to stick to my face. No one else thought this was fun, something about frost bite. They sure missed out!

We also had awesome snowball fights... 

My awesome cousins, Lindsie, Troy, and Mallory, came skiing with me. And even though they could ski anywhere on the mountain, they hung out with me on the easier slopes. I sure am lucky. My dad was being cautious and had me between his legs as we skied down the hill. My cousin Mallory zipped by and well, my dad just couldn't keep up so I pushed off of his legs and said, "I've got this," and away I went...literally. Talk about freedom. YAHOOOOOOO!!! Everyone started cheering and then a bit of silence, followed by panic...I had no clue how to stop. They quickly caught me and all was good. That is until I pointed my skis down hill again and whoooooosh, I was gone. My cousins thought it was hilarious. My parents, well, they got a workout. And if my dad couldn't quite reach me before a large stationary object - such as a tree - he sort of karate chopped me (aka clotheslined me!) to bring me to a stop. And me? I just smiled all the way down the hill.

My grandpa worked with me on technique. We settled on what I called "erching" for stopping. When told to stop (by panicking adults) I would just skid sideways (aka "erch") and fall over. While not pretty, it did do the trick...most of the time. The skiing definitely wiped me out. Sometimes I erched just to sit in the snow and relax for a minute.

  

At night we hung out with my cousins and aunts and uncles. My grandparents even took us to the dinosaur museum where there were tons of cool things to check out, including this shark that almost ate us!