Granny and Papa Visit

Granny and Papa Arrive!!!
First things first: getting reacquainted after a year and a half,

And meeting Rix for the first time.


Visiting the Mission home for Dennis' East Central States Mission:

His mission head quarters were in Louisville, KY and he remembers traveling here for a mission conference. The same building is now the office for the Louisville, KY mission.

The next day for visited the Slugger Museum:

On the production tour we saw the bats being made for A-Rod:




Dennis was really excited about holding his idol, Mickey Mantel's bat.

But we think he has better form than Mickey.

For lunch, we enjoyed the original Kentucky hot brown sandwich at the Brown hotel.

It's a rich open-faced turkey sandwich with bacon and gravy. Quite the treat. Ella's favorite part was the little ketchup bottle and pretending to be our waitress.


We also visited Churchill Downs and the Derby Museum the next day.

Visiting a retired race horse stabled on the grounds.

Sweet hugs at the track.

Picture Perfect. We all know how Granny likes her horse racing, especially the Kentucky Derby. This was a fun moment to see her at the rails.

And this was a fun moment to see Dennis and Jed race against each other, even if it wasn't real.
Papa won by 2 lengths.

Another site was the Louisville Temple:

It's one of the small temples.






We also did a fair amount of relaxing at playing at home.

Getting a hair cut, learning about the wild strawberries (aka weeds growing in our front yard), playing on the swing.

Getting underdogs from both daddy and papa:

Like father, like son.



And here's Ella giving underdogs for Rix's turn on the swing.

He has mixed emotions about his first time.

Our last venture was a picnic at Bernheim Forest.

Out on the canopy tree walk. It's like half of a bridge that stands you over the open forest.

My favorite picture of Dennis and Glenda from the visit:

We also fed a goose family and some turtles in one of the ponds. Who knew that turtles would come clamoring like ducks for old, crusty bread.

Ella named one of the turtles Agga, and another Gagga.

We actually had to stop the car and move a turtle to the side of the road as it was crossing so slowly. It hissed at Cyndi.

Other funny memories:
Ella yelling "You wiggle" at Granny.
Visiting Brusters twice, Dennis loved the Key Lime Pie ice cream.
Rix talking in the morning to Papa.

Time to say good-bye.
Two monumental goals were reached by the end of the visit. Ella climbed on papa's knee and learned to "give rock."

There was also another big moment when Glenda actually looked at the camera and smiled. No really, the best was having granny to rock little Rix on her lap.

We can't wait to see out family again.

Grandma Angel and Doctor Grandpa Come to Visit

Grandma Davis, or "Grandma Angel" as Ella calls her came out visit in the end of April and we began the fun with a lunch at the Butterfly Garden Cafe. This is definitely a new favorite for us and what it even more fun was the appearance of the "Red Hats" for their tea party. Here's a picture of what we ladies have to look forward to.


Jed asked a member what the red hats were and she said, "a bunch of little ole' ladies gettin' together and havin' a good time."
The Butterfly Cafe was fantastic. It even served Ella her PBJ on a butterfly plate and the food was AMAZING! Check their website for yum recipes, they list new ones monthly.

The next adventure was the Louisville Zoo...
Ella loved the animals, though her favorite part was probably the playground in the middle of the zoo.
We did get pretty close to the animals.
Just kidding.
Ella said her favorite was the baby elephant "Scotty" and his very big mama.

The next day was the usual library visit where we learned about bugs and Ella read to Grandma after the story time.


That night dad flew in and we enjoyed Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen.
Friday started with a trip down to the Fest-a-Ville on the water front.

Jed and Ella are flying the Pooh bear kite along the Ohio. Grandpa helped too.
We enjoyed a funnel cake.
and Ella went into the petting farm with daddy.

The highlight of the event was mom drawing a coveted "gold pin." She won a derby poster and an entry into the grand prize drawing. We're hoping she'll win the motorcycle and leave it here in Ky. Here's to hoping.

We're proud of our Golden Gal.

That night was the Balloon Glow at the Kentucky Expo field. As you can see, it's many hot air balloons gathering together to fire against a dark sky. It was beautiful.


There were thousands of people and so we took the short cut to the field.
Once a farm gal, always a farm gal. She hopped that fence like it was nothing.


We all got our pictures at the Lville balloon.
These were snapped right before this... The wind picked up, literally, and the Louisville balloon gusted out of the field. It was actually a little scary because an airplane zoomed right past the freed balloon as it was coming into land.
Balloon Glows are definitely a favorite thing about Kentucky.

Saturday, dad was off to a conference and Jed needed to study for finals so the girls went to the Churchill Downs Museum.
Here's Mom and Ella with a photo jockey. And here's the real jockeys that we saw when we went down to the track.
versus
I think the main difference is the shiny boots.

Inside the museum were tons of great exhibits about derby, a favorite was the hats. There was also a great panoramic movie that Ella kept gasping in because of all the horsies.

This exhibit was a fun challenge to stay crouched on the horse correctly the whole race. It was neat to ride from the jockey perspective watching a simulated race in front of you. Mom got the jockey pose down.

The coolest part was being able to go down to track. Because it was a race day, we actually got to see a race start to winner's circle at the end.

Paddock to track to winner circle
The Derby Museum was really neat and only 10 bucks a person includes a race, that's a steal.


With all that we've done the best part really has been just being together. Mom brought out twister which has been fun.

Here's Ella and Grandma playing kids phase 10. We've also done our family favorite rook. But best of all is wrestling with dad on the bed.

Ella only has smiles like that for Jed.
The crowning event of a trip to visit my brother in Michigan was mom and dad's first official derby pie.

They're both sold!
After we returned from Michigan, we went to the Louisville Slugger Museum.

We all tried the batting cages.

The pictures are Cyndi, Mom, Jed, and Dad.
Even Ella got to swing.

They had a cute corner for kids and a statue to climb on.


The factory where they make the bats was interesting, much more ghetto than I thought it would be, but in a way, really neat that it still takes personal touches for a good product.


You have to notice that "Christmas is canceled" on the board. The workers were really fun!
After the factory tour, you get your own little slugger. Seen here with Mom and Dad.


There's a part where you can choose to hold a bat used by the pros. We all opted for...

Here's Dad and Jed posing with Mickey's bat.
Nice form gents.

And of course, there's a exhibit to feature Babe Ruth.


This was such a fun visit and we can't wait for Grandma Angel and Doctor Grandpa to come again, or anyone else who wants to, hint, hint. : )