What a week!!!

{Beware . . . this is a long post!!!}

We have had a very eventful week.  It all began last weekend when I went to Winfield Friday evening after work to visit my family.  My grandpa has been sick for quite some time and on Friday morning they had to move him to a nursing home because my grandma was not able to continue caring for him 24 hours a day.  Hospice has been involved for several weeks as well as a private nurse who they hired to stay during the night.  I’m so glad I made the drive down because on Saturday evening we received the sad news that he had passed away.  The rest of the week has been somewhat of a whirlwind of activities.  Jeff left Sunday morning for Michigan and at that point we still didn’t even know when the funeral was going to be.  One of my uncles who lives in KC unexpectedly lost his mother-in-law on Saturday as well so we were having to try to schedule funeral arrangements around her service. 

Monday night Grant had his school music program.  It was titled {Snow Show}.  The kids all wore scarves and sang winter songs.

Grant is standing in the  back row!!!  He had a special part with a few other students from his class.  They all got to come down to the front of the stage a sing into the microphone.   I don’t think he got his singing ability from me!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent Tuesday and Wednesday night trying to get all of our stuff packed and my lesson plans written so that we would be ready to hit the road on Thursday morning and head to KC.  Despite the cold weather the drive going up to KC was a breeze.   We arrived at my cousin Mandy’s house a little after 11:00 am and hung out with her and her husband Sean for awhile.  They we did a little shopping and went out to eat at the 810 Zone sports bar and grill over at Town Center Plaza.  Grant enjoyed seeing the broadcasting booth and all of the sports memorabilia that line the walls.  He also had a blast playing the claw machine.

Thursday evening we met up with several of my dad’s cousins for dinner at the Herford House.  It was so much fun to see everyone despite the circumstances for our visit.  I think my grandma also enjoyed catching up with everyone.  My grandma had 10 brothers and sisters so as you can imagine there are tons of cousins.  The majority of the family still lives in the KC area but everyone wasn’t able to make it to dinner on such short notice.  We took a few generational photos.

My dad along with 3 of his cousins {Lauri, Eugenia & Cindy}

The younger generation of Elliott cousins!                                                  {Karen, Hailey, Amanda, Chrissy & me}

The youngest generation of Elliott cousins!                                                {Grant, Bridget & baby Francis}

Here’s my grandma with my dad and her nieces. We called this group the outlaws because they were the lucky ones that married into this crazy family!!!                                           {Sean, Frank, my mom and Matt}

This is my dads oldest cousin.  She and her husband moved to Houston a few years ago and they were in town visiting their kids when they got the news that my grandpa and died.   They ended up changing their flights so they could stay for the funeral.

Grant had a ball hanging out with Cindy and Aunt Karen.

And he loved playing with the little ones!!!

I also thought it was so sweet that my parents good friends Joe & Reggie from Augusta made the drive up for the funeral.  Joe was my dad’s best man when my parents got married.

Here’s one last photo of me and my dad.

We woke up Friday morning to ice cold weather and snowflakes.  We had a visitation at the church from 10-12 for family and friends and then the funeral service began at noon.  Then we had to drive across town for the burial.  We all went to my uncle Ron’s house for a delicious late lunch and then Karen, Grant and I hit the road to head home.  Grant had a birthday party he was really looking forward to and Jeff was flying in at 9:15 pm.  The roads were ok until we got to Emporia.  Then they became snow packed.  Definitely not ideal driving conditions at night!!!  The right hand lane had a path that was somewhat cleared off but we still drove about 40-45 mph the entire way through the Flint Hills.  I didn’t think we were ever going to get to El Dorado.  We only saw one car off the road and it was a state trooper.  We made it back to town around 7:30’ish and got Grant dropped off at his party.  It was such a long day.  My eyes were already puffy and sore from crying so much during the service and then with trying to drive in the dark with blowing snow they were strained even more.  I was so happy after I finally got Jeff picked up at the airport and was home in bed.

My plan for today is to stay in my pj’s, catch up on laundry and my DVR’d shows all day and then cheer for KU tonight when they beat those Wildcats!!!

Harlem Globetrotters

Cost of tickets . . . $90

Cost of parking . . . $15

Cost of food . . . $22

Cost of basketball . . . $25

Spending the evening with daddy watching the Harlem Globetrotters . . . priceless

Last night Jeff took Grant to the new Intrust Bank Arena to see the Harlem Globetrotters.  All season long Grant cheered for Flight Time & Big Easy on The Amazing Race so you can imagine how excited he was to meet them and get their autographs after the game.  Jeff was supposed to be in charge of taking a few pictures while they were there but all I got were a few video clips instead. 

Luckily the Harlem Globetrotters were out to get more of my money and they posted this picture online that we could purchase of Grant with Flight Time after the game. 

Bargain Shopping

There’s nothing I love more than a good bargain . . . so you can imagine how excited I was on Sunday afternoon when I decided to go look around at Gordman’s while Grant was at basketball practice and found out I could take an additional 50% off all of the items on sale.  I’d seen a big sign a few days earlier hanging on the outside of the building that said {CLEARANCE EVENT} so I thought I might get lucky and find a new comforter set for my guest bedroom at a great price.  Unfortunately there wasn’t too much left in that department that caught my eye.  But I did find a few steals.  Here’s a peek at some of the things I got for Grant.  He’s been so excited every morning this week to get up and put on one of his new shirts.

  MONDAY $5.00 {Adidas KU Jersey}
   TUESDAY $6.00 {WSU Shockers Shirt}
WEDNESDAY $10.00 {Nike KC Royals Jersey}
Jeff likes to remind me that things are only a “bargain” if you had intended to buy them when you went in the store and found out they were on sale.  He likes to call what I do “shopping”.

1st Basketball Game

Yesterday Grant had his first basketball game of the season.  He is playing on a new team this year {The Mavericks}.  It is full of other 3rd grade boys from Maize and they look like they are off to a great start.  They have been practicing since mid-November.  Their coach has spent a lot of time working on the fundamentals (dribbling, passing, etc . . .)  Jeff and I are already noticing some big improvements in Grant’s play.  It’s hard to believe that this is his 6th season playing!!! 

Here’s a look at our final score.  Way to go Mavericks!!!

Kansas City

I was going through photos tonight on my camera and realized I completely forgot to post pictures from our trip to Kansas City earlier last week.  We drove up on Tuesday morning and spent the day with Miles doing some post-Christmas shopping.  Since he wasn’t able to come down over the holiday we thought it would be fun to get away for a few days and go see him.  Luckily we didn’t have too bad of weather to travel in, although it was terrible cold so some of the outdoor plans we had in mind (shopping at the Plaza and ice skating at Crown Center) didn’t happen.  We still had a great time though spending time together!!!

We made reservations at the old Aladdin Hotel downtown.  They’ve recently remodeled it and the decor was very cool.  Check out the bright colored room we stayed in.  The boys both loved the elephant towel that was sitting in the room when we arrived.   Grant still hasn’t quite figured out how to fold his bathroom towels to look like this.

Grant especially loved the complimentary champagne we got after checking in.  Don’t worry he just had a little sip!!!

Daddy and his boys

The lobby had this great zebra print wall so I of course made the boys pose for a few pictures before we left for dinner.   {They weren’t too happy to be posing with everyone watching.}

Here’s Miles sporting one of the new outfits he picked out while we were shopping.  There wasn’t great lightning in the lobby so you probably can’t tell from the picture very well that he is wearing one of his new coordinating hats too.   The boy loves his hats!!!

Grant’s big purchase on the trip was a framed picture of Michael Jackson.  He is completely obsessed with his music.  While Miles and I were looking for his new Air Jordan shoes Jeff took Grant shopping.  Lucky for him he had daddy with him because there is absolutely NO way I would have let him buy the picture.  Now the tricky part will be figuring out where to hang it.  He chose a spot above his bed, but that is visible from the front door when you look down the hallway, and I don’t want MJ to be the first person guests see when they come to our house!!!

New Year’s Eve

This year we let Grant host his very own New Year’s Eve party.  He invited a few of his friends from school and his baseball/basketball team.  As you can imagine it was a wild night with a house full of 9 year old boys.  We tried to keep them busy playing board games, video games and snacking until the official start of the New Year.

A little before 11 pm we tuned into the Dick Clark New Year’s special on TV so they could watch the ball drop.  Everyone got pretty silly.  For some reason a few of the boys thought it would be a good idea to spend the final minutes of the year doing the tango.  Jeff reminded them that they would be really sorry in a few years that they had let him take pictures of this!!!

When they saw the ball drop in NYC they of course wanted to celebrate the new year with their bottle of sparkling grape juice.  They were so cute making toasts.  It was even cuter that they were celebrating even though there was nearly a hour until we would ring in the new year here in Wichita.

Happy New Years!!!

Somehow we got all the boys settled in to watch a movie before 11:30.  Of course Spiro was right in the middle of all the action.

It was so nice to see the boys all having so much fun together.  I have a feeling that this may be the way we  spend several more New Year’s Eves to come.