Grandma Toone To the Rescue! And a Lovely Visit

In honor of my Mom's birthday coming up in just a couple days, here's a post in her honor! It shows what an amazing woman she is and how she came to the rescue when I needed her most. When I found out I broke my leg, she bumped her planned trip up a week so that she could come help transport me around and take care of the girls. It was a blessed day when she arrived! And as always, she came with a suitcase completely full of clothes for all the grandkids. That's always a favorite activity- going through and seeing all the fun new clothes she's found at yard sales. Lexi modeled a new Cinderella dress.

Once Mom got here, I was actually able to get out and do things! She pushed me around in a wheelchair wherever we needed to go. The aquarium was one of our first outings. We had a year pass that expired just after this visit, so I"m glad we got one more good visit in!

Rope bridge success! Cute Mom.

From there, we met Bree at Thai Siam in Draper for $2 Tuesday Pad Thai! I think I'm the only real Thai fan in this group, but it was fun and yummy nonetheless. :)

Another huge blessing of having Mom here was that she was able to drive the girls to their swimming lessons twice a day for 2 whole weeks! I couldn't drive, remember, so someone had to do it! It worked out perfectly. Lexi had lessons at 11, for which she had to wear her hair in a ponytail. She hated that...hence the crocodile tears.

Grandma was a great hair doer and sunscreen applier. Then after Lexi's lesson, they'd come home for lunch, and then go back a couple hours later for Cami's lesson! It was like a 10 minute drive each way, so that was a lot of travel! But they loved their swimming lessons, and I'm glad they got to do them. 

One night, Mom and I went on a girl's outing to the Mormon Tabernacle summer concert! It was lovely. We got to park in handicap, wait in the short shady handicapped line, and get great seats in the wheelchair section. haha. Notice how I tried to dress up my t-shirt and no makeup with a pitiful necklace.

The music was fun and lively and beautiful, as always!

We enjoyed walking/wheeling through Temple Square to get back to City Creek parking. Love this temple! It's cool to think that we both got married here.

Another outing included The Discovery Gateway children's museum. It was fun to watch Mom play and pretend with the girls.

Learning about being super recyclers!

And THEN one day, Grandpa came to town! That was a treat. He came about a week before we left for the cabin, so that he could spend some quality time in Utah with Britt's family especially before they moved to CA.

After our cabin trip, Dad flew home after a few days on the farm, and Mom and Grandma came home in our van and we took Grandma back home the next day. On our way, we stopped at the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point. Cute matching mother/daughter picture!

Happy 4th of July! We enjoyed parades the night before and the morning of the 4th, and a barbeque at the Yospe's. Later that night, since Jake had to work a Real soccer game, the girls went to a movie! We saw Inside Out (for our 2nd time, Grandma's first) and we all loved it.

After the movie, we drove up to the top of a hill in Sandy and watched fireworks all over the valley! It was lovely! So fun to spend it with Mom and sparklers.

Another big project that Mom took on while she was staying with us, was sorting through allllll our baby girl clothes that I've saved for 6 years. It was overtaking the basement bedroom, so we decided that the time had come to get rid of it. *wahhhh!* That was a hard decision. But if we do (hopefully!!) ever have another baby, if it is a girl, we'll want to get new updated clothes anyways. So no use in keeping it all and having it fill our house. It was a big task to sort and organize by sizes, and decide what to give away, who to give to, whether to sell, give to DI, etc. Bless you, Mom, for your help and hard work with all this!

(I ended up giving away some to friends, holding a yard sale, giving more a stake swap meet, donating some to Savers, and selling some online. Whew, a lot of work!)

Mom got to finally get her pedicure that I promised her for Christmas! We went to a nail school that specializes in nails, and they had us climb up onto this huge tall bench. They sat at our feet and went to work, and it was great! Mom was answering a call from Britt in this picture. :) We both chose sparkly glittery polish, and it lasted on our toes for a good 2 months!

Another favorite thing to do whenever Mom comes in the summer is go to Scera Shell shows! I love this picture of Mom and Grandma- both looking beautiful!

It wouldn't be Toone time without games! Bree came over one night for some Quirkle.

Another thing we did while Mom was here was fulfill one of her goals: to go to the church history family library downtown. It was cool to get to do some work on the computers, while the girls played and colored in the kids area. We also wore black and white because it was Chick-fil-a Dress Like a Cow Day! The girls made adorable little black and white cows on Temple Square. :)

We grabbed some frozen yogurt at the Gateway.

And donned our spots for some free chicken meals!

Hahaha we also went to the Clark Planetarium after I got a CTscan done on my knee next door to that. I love this picture of little Astronaut Lex!

And finally, we finished off that fun filled downtown day by letting the girls get in their swimsuits and play in the Gateway fountain splash pad! As Mom and I were sitting and watching, Cami came up and wiggled her tooth and it came right out! She was SO excited to lose her FIRST tooth, right then and there. It was very joyful.

And finally, the last day came for Mom's marathon visit, right before we left for our Yospe trip to CA, and she left for her Misiego trip to CA! (She went to stay with Britt's kids for 2 weeks while Britt and David went to Europe!) Jake's work had an employee family party at the Bee's game on Thursday, July 16th, so Bree and Mom joined us and we ate dinner and watched the game. I couldn't believe that Mom's 5 week stay had already come to an end!

It went by so quickly, but was filled with so many fun times and memories. Sure do love that lady- that mama of mine. Don't know what I would do without you, Mom! Can't wait for you to live out here someday soon. ;) Love you, and Happy Birthday this Friday! *mwahhh!