A Nice Surprise...

Last weekend was a good weekend. One of the best. I had been feeling a little disappointed that I hadn't gone to my grandpa's funeral. I felt like I had missed out on seeing family. Anyway, I had been thinking this on Friday morning and then went on a walk with Nikki that afternoon. Jon Mark was weird, he kept asking me what time I'd be home from my walk. I kept telling him I would be gone no longer than about 45 minutes and he kept saying he was going to pick me up from the walk early and drive me home. He told me it was because he didn't think I ought to be walking so much while being this far along in my pregnancy. I believed him, but I still thought he was being weird. Turns out, there was a good reason why he had wanted me home by a certain time.

Well, I got home from my walk, went into the house, and then I heard my dad's familiar cell phone ring. I thought to myself that Jon Mark was changing his phone ring to sound like my dad's, I thought this was weird also. I looked up from what I was doing and there was my dad, standing in my kitchen... my Ohio kitchen. Needless to say, it was a great surprise that came on the perfect day.

At first, my kids acted a bit shy. I don't think they knew what to think about my reaction and about my dad being there all of a sudden. However, they warmed up quickly and Mercedes was quite the cuddle bug with her Papa Haws. Joshua loved having him here and was quite distraught when he went to leave. I think he rather liked having Papa live in the room across the hall for a few days. I think he thought that it was a permanent change. When my dad was packing up, Joshua came running to me and asked what Papa was doing. I told him he was leaving to go back to Arizona. He asked me why he had to leave and whether or not he could go with him. He said, "I don't like Ohio, I want to go back to Arizona with Papa." He doesn't really hate Ohio, he has some great friends here, but he was sad to see my dad go. He acted up the rest of the day.

We went to the lake to look for sea glass and Joshua was not a fan. It was cold and he didn't like being cold. Mercedes had to be watched closely because she would have had no problem going all the way into the waves and water. My dad did find a few pieces, but we had to leave due to the demanding three year old who was quite protestant.

We also went to Westside Market (an old market place that resembled the type found in Europe, or so I am told). It's almost one hundred years old and was a neat building.

The food turned out to be subpar, but it was a good experience. We hit up Applebee's and went to the museum and church. He had to teach in primary because some of the teachers hadn't shown up and there plenty of classes that needed to be taught. He lucked out because Jon Mark was given the entire senior primary to teach and my dad only had five kids or so.

It was fun having my dad here for a couple of days and having him see the way we live in Ohio. Thanks for the awesome surprise dad! It was a lot of fun and my kids miss you!