After waiting in a looooong line for our rental car, they upgraded us for free to a Toyota Sienna and we were off to drive to my Grandparents' house. As soon as we got to their house, I felt at peace. Being around my grandparents is good for my soul. Ben normally takes a long time to warm up to people, but he warmed right up to them! My Grandpa is interested in rocks, so he had tons of cool rocks around the house. Ben would go through the bowls of rocks and my Grandpa would tell him the names of each rock.
Whenever we go to new places, Ben is MAD about sleeping in new places and he screams for a long time. Well, my Great Grandma was not happy about that. She made a snarky comment about Ben needing "Tender loving care!!". Hope she forgives me! The next day, we took Ben to see a cool old train in town. It was pretty windy, so we didn't stay for long. We also rode on their ATV, saw a snake (and named him Gary the Gopher Snake), played with the remote control tank truck and just played in the dirt. My grandparents live a mile down a dirt road and they are the last house on the sparsly populated road. It's so quiet, peaceful and beautiful there!
After going to sleep that night, things got exciting! I woke up to hear Ben coughing. I thought it sounded like he threw up, so I got up and checked on him. Oh. No. There was throw up everyyyywhere in his bed. I got Joel out of bed and we tried to clean him up. Ben had never thrown up before in his life, so we wondered if maybe he was just a little too warm or something? Well, the throw up continued through the night. His bed was destroyed, so he slept with us...and threw up on three layers of sheets, towels and blankets. We all three ended up sleeping perpendicular on the bed, which meant Joel and my legs were hanging off the side of the bed. A few hours later, Ben started to get Diarrhea (also a first...). How much more fun could we have?? Ben woke up acting fine, so we let him have some breakfast. We were supposed to be leaving for the Grand Canyon that morning. We hung around my grandparents house for a while, hoping that Ben's stomach would settle down. After a while, the three of us loaded into the car and set off for Grand Canyon. We didn't have any incidents on the drive, but as soon as we got there, Ben got sick again (out both ends...). Uuuuugh. After a quick look at the rim of the canyon, we checked in to our room early. Poor buddy kept getting sick, so I stayed in the hotel with Ben and Joel set out on a run to see a bit of the canyon.
We grabbed dinner from a nearby cafeteria and ate in the hotel room. Ben slept like a ROCK that night and slept for maybe 14 hours. I woke up early the next morning to watch the sunrise over the Grand Canyon while Joel and Ben slept. It was beautiful, but the wind was bitter cold!! I wasn't prepared for the cold!! After the sunrise, I couldn't find where I parked the van. It was dark when I parked and I couldn't even remember which parking lot I was in. I was feeling a little panicked as I ran around in the bitter cold trying to find the van! (Can you find the dinosaur in the clouds in the 3rd picture below)?
For the rest of the day, Ben was still feeling under the weather, so Joel and I split up again to see what we could see. He ran again and took some selfies along the way. I carried Ben and we rode the bus to different spots. It was also windy, so Ben just clung to us like a little Koala.
We drove home that afternoon.
When we got back, we discovered that my Grandpa had come down with whatever Ben had...and my Great Grandma was terrified of getting sick (not sure she could survive something like that...). Ben had another rough night that night at my Grandparents. We decided to drive to Vegas and get a hotel the night before our flight instead of trying to drive to the airport the morning of our flight. Ben napped in the van on the way to Vegas, so Joel and I took a little drive to see Hoover Dam and the amazing bridge they've recently built. We got a room at the MGM Signature, which was super nice!! We went to Rainforest Cafe for dinner, thinking that Ben would enjoy it...wrong...we were those parents who had the extremely bratty-acting child who didn't appear to be doing anything about it. And it was true. We didn't do anything about it. We were trying to avoid a major meltdown at all costs. A massive tantrum from a sick and very over-tired toddler is not something we wanted to deal with in the middle of a vegas casino...After bath, we managed to get Ben to bed and I got to read for an hour then sleep for nine solid hours. aaaaaaah. That's what I call vacation!
After a solid nights sleep, Ben woke up happy as a clam.
He was still pretty crabby at the airport, but we lucked out and got a seat for him on the plane (very last row). Somehow we managed not to have a meltdown on the plane. He was happy to clean his seat over and over and over again with wipes.
Despite the sickness, we actually had a great vacation. Ben had fun getting to know all my grandparents a little more and I was just happy to be with Ben and Joel for so much time!
Oh...one funny story about my Grandma Edna...My Grandma is a verrrry open minded, creative, adventurous, creative individual. She's not your typical 94 year old. Anyways, we were all sitting around the table and she asks Joel and I directly if we've ever smoked marijuana ("no, grandma, of course not!"). Well, she has. She just wanted to have a conversation about her experience. She said that she experimented with it when she was young and she described how it hightened all her senses...but she said that she decided she didn't need marijuana because she could already see such beautiful things in the world that she didn't need help from marijuana. Ooooh Grandma, I love her. I wish I could be more like my grandparents (all three of them!). She went on to tell us about the marijuana plant she grew in her house for years simply because it was a beautiful plant. Here she is, soaking up Ben's spirit. This was before he got sick. She wouldn't go near him afterwards :(
2 comments:
:o) That's just a huge grin!
This post makes me smile :) Love you guys!
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