Our First visit to see Little Ms. Ariana
If you would have asked the 30 year old version of me what are the likely locations of your vacation home(s) in twenty years from now? I think my response would have been filled with places like, a beach condo in Mexico, a lake cabin in Michigan, a little cottage in Napa, a NY condo, etc. One place for sure that would not have been on the list is a bedroom at your Parents house in Oklahoma! But I have to say, it is a home. It may not be vacation always (I do work when I am there) but having family there, being so welcome and comfortable HOME is the right word.
So again we headed East to the land of the ‘Grand Children’ - notice the plural? Yepper, old Mike and Kimberly now have a beautiful little Grand Daughter Ariana Marie born on a January day when we were tailgating in a parking lot at the Fiesta Bowl. This would be our first trip to see her, and while time with M3 was of course on the agenda, he was not the star of the show this time (well… at least not when Ariana was around)!
We had another great trip - or should I say trips. We basically spent near a month there, only we headed out on the weekends to run Marathon’s that could be easily reached with a drive - we talk about those in other blogs. Little Ms. Ariana was so precious. As I like to say being only a couple of months old, “she doesn’t yet do a lot of tricks” so that means a I do smelling, smiling and little smooches, while Grandma K does all the holding. I of course do all the Grandpa flash too (you know there was some picture taking). She is about the perfect baby, I don’t think she fussed more than 2 minutes the whole time. She just sits there and looks at you and takes it all in.
We had several highlights this trip. Of course little Ms. A was the biggie. I can’t wait until next trip to see her new tricks ;-0. Other cool stuff included was getting to run with a couple of the Miller family generations. I cajoled (read: bribed) youngest son Zac into running with the old Dad. We went over to a little favorite perfect mile loop run spot and did a solid two miles. He did great, I actually thought he would struggle more but the pace was solid and considering his basketball shorts were falling down and had to be held, he really did great! It made me feel really happy - I so hope he keeps it up. Maybe he can get his older brother running too and the three (me plus them) Miller boys can someday run a Marathon together. The other cool run was with M3 in the stroller. Grandma and me took little Michael III over to the same track and pushed him in the stroller as we ran. I was worried as heck he would hate it because the wind was terrible and it was kind of cold, but he would just sit there and smile away as the miles clicked by. Truth be told, I only did 2 mile laps with him and Grandma did most. The stroller is a little bit small and you have to hunch over with it to run - we need to score a run stroller next time we are there. Michael seems to love to run on his own too. Every time we are outside with him and running around yelling “run, run, run” he just smiles and tears around like a natural. Oh, and while it doesn’t have anything to do with running, it does have to do with highlights of the trip at least from a Grandma perspective - M3 now fully has the word “Grandma” down. In particular when he wants something - hmmm learn that from Grandpa perhaps?
One of the things we have also really come to look forward to is the time hanging with the old peoples - yeah, that the folks. Sometimes when all the kids are at home and it’s just us errr 40 year old plus types the old house is so peaceful and relaxing. We really enjoy their company when we can just sit around and talk about M3 and Little A. Plus did I mention it was my birthday time when we were hanging there so you know that meant another German Chocolate Cake. Yep, we eat cake with all that not good for you stuff - in this case the word is ‘worthy’ and then some.
So as we headed out we knew it wouldn’t be too long until we were back - heck I need more pictures when Ariana is a little bigger and aside from that you need to take advantage of your vacation home whenever you can right….?
PICTURES HERE