Grandpa Time

I never really thought I'd be the one that wanted to live close to my parents once I got married. . . ya know that whole "make it on my own" mentality.  How kids change things.  My sister who lives on the East Coast will tell you and me every time she can how lucky we are to have mom and dad so close so they can watch my kids.  This is true, but I don't think we take advantage of that as much as she thinks!  Anyways, I am so happy that things have worked out for us to live close to my parents for more then just the free babysitting aspect . . . I love that my kids love getting to go to grandma and grandpa's house!  They get to do things there that they would never get to do at home-things like playing and sleeping in the tent trailer, staying up late, walking around the cul-de-sac with no car whizzing by and working in the garage with grandpa!

 Since my dad retired my parents have been out and about traveling all around searching/digging for rocks.  They've probably done other things besides just looking for "cool" rocks, but you wouldn't know by looking at all the buckets of rocks they brought home from Montana.  Grandma even managed to find Tate a dinosaur egg!  That was pretty cool. 

 My dad was working on polishing the rocks on this contraption when Tate wanted to jump up and see what all the noise was about!  My dad hasn't had the greatest luck with keeping all of his digits intact when working with machinery (notice his left pointer finger all wrapped up after shaving it to the bone while working on the router), so I was sure to make sure Tate's hands stayed by his side!  I'd like Tate to keep his fingers for a while longer still.

My mom thinks I don't "appreciate" the rocks they found, and I told her I didn't really see the fascination with it all. . . maybe you have to be retired to understand, or by three years old to think it is cool.  But, it doesn't really matter what I think.  They are having a great time together and who can't appreciate that?