Grandparents vs. Graduation Ceremonies? No Contest!

At the beginning of the year when we were planning out our finals/moving/graduation schedules, we discovered we'd have a full 2 1/2 weeks in between finals and graduation. It seemed silly to pay rent and all our other expenses just to stay around for graduation. So we left the end of April and moved out to Utah. Taylor started work on May 4th and I spent a week unpacking and recovering from bad colds. Taylor's parents were gratious enough to offer to pay for our flights back to DC and accomodations since they wanted to attend graduation so then we only had to figure out what to do with the boys. I mean seriously- what 4 year old and 17 month old wants to sit through a 3 hour Business school ceremony as well as a 2 hour school-wide commencement as well as a 4 hour Law School ceremony as well as all the dinners and receptions in between. (I guess that question could apply to this 30 year old also but I did it anyways and it was really nice- almost relaxing, since there weren't 2 kids to entertain the whole time).
My parents were nice enough to agree to watch the boys so the 3 of us flew from Salt Lake to Chicago on Tuesday and we spent 3 days hanging around so that they would be familiar with the house and my parents and not feel so abandoned. Ethan is old enough to understand and even to talk on the phone so he didn't mind too much being left. Isaac was quite another story.
Grandma Tina and Grandpa Pat made sure that every night ended with a fun bath in their whirlpool tub followed by either a rousing game of Wii sports or story time. My mom swears there's something about the 2nd remote that causes you to lose (apparently Ethan beat her several times).
Grandma also took them to IKEA to get extra train tracks so they could build huge tracks. Don't ask about his expression. I couldn't explain it if I tried.

But the highlight of every day was waiting for Grandpa Pat to get home so they could go shoot "popper balls" outside. A few Christmases ago my dad bought us each a burp gun. He remembers having them as a child. It's basically an air gun with ping pong balls in it. The past few times we've gone to visit them, Ethan has waited patiently for my dad to get home and then he would take the balls and dump them over the stair railing on him as he walked in from work. Apparently their downstairs neighbors could hear that so my dad decided they'd shoot the balls off their back deck instead.

Isaac never could manage to shoot the balls himself but he insisted on holding a gun.

So they'd shoot the balls off and then go down the "pizza stairs" (circular staircase with triangular steps- can you guess who named them the pizza stairs?)

Then they'd go ball hunting in the grass and load up their guns to do it all over again. The boys were in high heaven! Friday morning I flew out to DC to meet up with Taylor and his parents and the boys spent the weekend with my parents. They had such a great time and so did we. Thanks again for making all of our graduation weekends so wonderful!!!

On a sad note, Isaac got pink eye the day before we left Salt Lake. It didn't seem to bother him (no itching or scratching) until Thursday afternoon when goo started to come out of it (yes that's the technical term). Then Friday night he woke up at 1:30 am throwing up and threw up 3 times and endured a few more baths in the middle of the night before he finally passed back out. He only threw up one more time in the morning and then was fine. The pink eye cleared up while I was away too. So my mom gets extra credit for cleaning gook out of his eye and cleaning up his vomit. Her last words to me as I left to board my plane were "and don't worry, I have a wet vac so it doesn't matter where he throws up". Great!!! That makes me feel so much better that you're having to clean up after him instead of me and you're not worried because you have the proper clean-up tools at least. I have a great mom!

Isaac is a real momma's boy (which I love since Ethan was never very cuddly) so I knew he'd have a hard time with me away. It was nice to hear though that he was never really sad over the weekend as long as Ethan was around. They had to wake up Ethan from his nap a few times when Isaac woke up sooner and was sad but then he'd calm right down and run around and play with him. It warmed my heart to hear that at least he had his brother with him and that made things better.

The boys really did have a great time and here's the video evidence of that.