The Grands

We decided the Griffin household was long overdue for a trip to Houston to visit family. We packed up the whole family, strapped them in their carseats and headed east to Houston on a Friday morning. Zachary was overjoyed to be going to see Nana and Papa and excited to get to stay there for an evening. My sister, her husband and our 6 year old nephew came over on Saturday and Ian and Zachary played and played and played. The boys broke out every board game my parents had and Ian taught Zachary how to play Monopoly. They dug into Nana's art supplies and cut and taped and colored and painted. They ate cake and tiny Ben and Jerry's ice creams Nana smilingly brought them. They drank chocolate milk. They ran wild. Caleb watched it all from the sidelines and tried his darnedest to join in. Caleb also got to take off and crawl up his first set of stairs. Zachary learned his dear dog friend, Pascal, had died and Ian showed him again and again where in the yard he was buried. Grandma Betty came over for a few hours and played games with Zachary and tried to keep up with the fun. Mom and Dad took us out to eat at a great South American restaurant and the boys enjoyed themselves. Zachary inhaled my shrimp and Dad's calamari and Caleb chomped on Greg's redfish (which he then threw up on my back in bed later that night. oh the joys of cosleeping. Probably shouldn't have given him fish). We walked over to a bakery and got Zachary dessert and later broke out the telescope to check out the moon. We left late that night and drove home to Austin, tired but happy.

We spent some quiet time together. I tried to do a lot of talking with my parents. Dad has prostate cancer and is scared and mad and everything all jumbled up together. His surgery is scheduled for mid July and they are worried, rightly so. We are too. We are praying that everything goes smoothly and that we can all be strong, no matter the outcome.