Memaw & Pepaw visit

My parents came to visit for 5 days.

As I mentioned yesterday while we were having coffee, there were some tears when they had to go back to Illinois.

I truly believe, though, that it's mixed blessing being so far away from our families. Obviously, we miss them. We wish we could be there more. We wish we could have seen Ethan after his first day of preschool and watch Owen grow into the pudgiest, squishiest baby ever. We wish that our parents could come to every event that the girls are involved in.

But, because we are so far away, it's a giant deal when we have visitors. We try to take in as much of each other as we can. We appreciate free babysitters and the extra stories and making memories because we're also trying to give them a memorable trip.

So we went to the zoo.

For some strange, odd, totally unlike me reason, I had never taken my parents to our zoo in their past trips. I apologized profusely and then berated myself for such a grave error.

My mom was thrilled to get to feed the giraffes.


We fed the birds. I will not get into how I was pooped on by a bird and almost threw up because it was on my bare arm, but I still continued to take pictures of the girls until my mom found me a kleenex and sanitizer. I'm sure you don't want to hear about bird poop.




We went to the "World Wide Day of Play" on base. They had jump houses and giant checker games, broomstick hockey and a rock climbing wall, and fruit and water for snacks.




We ate at The Airplane Restaurant. My dad had never been there and it's one of Elisabeth's favoritest restaurants in the city.


We also went to the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center. I'm going to make that experience a separate post for another time, but I'm sure it goes without saying that Elisabeth was ecstatic.

We went to the airplane museum on base. Julia's favorite airplane? "Baby cows."
We also invaded Evan's office. The girls drew him pictures while we chatted and then taped them to the wall. It just proves that Evan could totally take Julia to work with him while he does legal mumbo jumbo.
After 5 fun packed days, we took Memaw and Pepaw to the bus station where they would hop a ride to Denver and the train station to catch the train back to Illinois.
Julia keeps telling me that Memaw and Pepaw will be back soon, but it honestly might be a year before we see them again. You see, my sister's husband is also in the Air Force and they are stationed in Texas. So, my parents take two trips a year--one to see her and one to see me.

Now, I feel that, as their eldest and most precious child, they should see me more, but my mom claims that she loves us "equally" and that they need to be "fair". I think she's just sparing Terra's feelings.

But, the real reason we don't know when we'll see them again is that we find out in November what we'll be doing next summer. Either we'll be hanging out here in Colorado another year or we'll be finding out we will be moving to our new station in the summer of 2011. So, it's hard to plan another trip when we don't know exactly what we'll be doing.

So, for now, we're planning an Illinois trip next September. Until then, we'll just have to try to keep the "we miss them" sadness away through emails and video chat and phone calls and letters. It's not the same, but it's better than nothing.