Weekend Adventures with Grandparents

In honor of our beloved son's second birthday, Jeff and I decided to rent a cabin at Big Ridge State Park and invite his four grandparents to join us. Jeff's parents and my dad and bonus mom came down on Friday.

On Friday afternoon, they went on a tour of my lab, including a tour of the area I work in. Then we headed for the cabin. We got there after closing time, and didn't know how to get the key to our cabin. Luckily, there was a ranger from a different park coming out of the restroom at the time, and she was able to find out with a phone call that our key could be found in the mailbox.

After unpacking our bags and putting our food in the fridge in the cabin, we headed out to a nearby town for pizza (Vinny's favorite food). We found a local pizza place and shared two pizzas before returning to the cabin for the night.

In the morning, I had planned to make some pancakes for us all to enjoy. I'd mixed all the dry ingredients at home, and would mix in the wet ingredients at the cabin. But I realized that I had forgotten my two-burner griddle, and sent Jeff back to our house for it and a few other things (such as allergy medication). Then, after he got back, I realized we had forgotten the eggs, so Dad and Marvis went out to get some eggs. Finally, we had all the ingredients for our breakfast, which we enjoyed at about noon.

In the afternoon, we took Vinny down to the playground at the park. He really enjoyed slides for the first time. He figured out how to slide down a slide by himself, which is a pretty big development. In fact, there was a corkscrew slide that he was somewhat intimidated by, so I offered to help him go down it, but before I could get seated, he'd accidentally fallen down it. I was worried that it would freak him out but it seemed to have the opposite effect. He couldn't get enough of that slide, and he must have gone down it a dozen times or more.

That evening, we cooked hamburgers and brats on the charcoal grill for Vinny's birthday dinner. We enjoyed the hamburgers and brats along with some red potatoes with rosemary, potato chips, and fruit salad. After dinner, we opened Vinny's presents to give us some time to make room for cake and ice cream.

I had made Vinny a cocoa devil's food cake (my standard chocolate cake) with raspberry filling between the layers and white frosting on the outside. As it turns out, my son is more of an ice cream eater than a cake eater. He ate all his ice cream and some of mine, but ate only a few bites of the cake.

Having so much sugar so late made it a little difficult to put Vinny to bed, but eventually he did fall asleep. In the morning, Jeff and his parents went to Quaker Meeting, while the rest of us cleaned up the cabin before taking Vinny back to the playground one more time. Then, we drove back home, where Dad and Marvis assembled Vinny's new Vinny-sized table for him.

Eventually Jeff and his parents arrived home again, but we discovered that Jeff's dad had left his camera at the cabin, so Jeff and his dad drove back there to retrieve it.

Over all, it was a really fun weekend together. We all had so much fun getting together and appreciating Vinny. We may all differ when it comes to politics, religion, or other matters of opinion, but one thing we all agree upon is that Vinny is a fantastic little boy.