Memorial Day Weekend

***When you get down to the pictures...for some reason, they posted in opposite order of the way I described them...so it may be confusing..but I'm not gonna go back and fix them all...so good luck! (sorry!) I can't figure out this posting picture thing on blogger! Ergh!***

Wow, where'd this week go? I was totally gonna post about our Memorial Day weekend on Tuesday...and then now, here it is...Friday night and I am just now sitting down to do it. The bad thing about waiting this long is that I can't really remember what was interesting enough to blog about. Let's see...we left Saturday morning an hour later than planned (but that was what I expected would happen) ha! Anyway, we rolled into our "hometown" around 1:30 and had the "pleasure" (and I say that as sarcastically as possible) of looking around town for a vacant hotel room. Apparently there was some big golf tournament there this weekend...so rooms were sparse. We ended up staying at the 2nd place we went to but had to settle for a smoking room. Ick. It didn't smell too horribly bad though and it was WAY nicer than the first place we went. Plus...this is a SMALL town we're talking about and the next choice would have been a little hole-in-the-wall motel, so we were actually pretty excited to get this room. Anyway, first up on the agenda was for me and one of my old very good friends (and she was one of my bridesmaids) to meet up and go to a wedding (It was my best friend from high school getting married--and she was the maid of honor at my wedding.) Matt and the kids stayed and visited with his dad while we were gone. It was SO fun being with my old buddies again! Here are a couple of pics. The first one is of me and Joy, the next one is of the bride and groom (Keri & Steve)--check out that cool cake! Black and white zebra striped! The 3rd pic is of me and Keri.











Anyhow, so after the wedding, Joy dropped me off at Matt's grandmother's house where a bunch of family was waiting and we had a wonderful dinner and lots of entertainment from my kids. Here are a few pics from that: This first one is of Brooklyn dressed up. The 2nd one is of Matt's dad with Grant. The 3rd pic is of Matt's dad, his aunt Jenna and him. The 4th pic is of Matt's grandma, (we call her Nane) and Brooklyn entertaining us all and the 4th one is of Lindsay (Matt's little brother's wife) and me. For those of you who wondered...THIS side of the family is where Brooklyn gets her red hair.
So, while we were there--it started raining. And raining and raining and eventually flooding! By the time we left and got back to our hotel, cars were almost completely covered and some were literally floating around the hotel parking lot!!!!! It was crazy and like nothing I have ever seen before!

This pic was taken earlier in the day...but it was actually worse than that by that evening. I took pics but they are took dark to see. Also of interest: The hotel alarm went off that night and kept going off for over an hour!! We thought it might be the fire alarm at first, but they said it was just their alarm system and that they had to wait on some people to come and shut it off. By 11 pm, I was about to get REALLY mad...but then it finally went off. Oh and one more thing...our hotel room floor was flooded so it was soaking wet in there the whole weekend! We had to wear our flip-flops the whole time!



On Sunday, we got up and went to church with Matt's other grandma and got to hear our pastor from a long time ago (the one who married us). It was SOOOOOO good. After that, we went over to Matt's mom's for lunch. Her and her fiance, Duane, grilled burgers and had all kinds of other good stuff to eat. It was a great time and nice to be there with everyone. Matt's little brother, Cale and his wife Lindsay were there with their son Jaxon. It was his birthday that day too. My kids LOVE LOVE LOVE him and they were so excited to play with him. Here are some pics from that gathering:




That first pic is of Matt's mom (Nana), Duane (her fiance), Brooklyn and Grant. Bet you'll never guess who the 2nd pic is of! ha ha...The 3rd one is of Matt's grandma (Mamaw) with Brooklyn, Jaxon & Grant. The 4th pic is of Grant with Duane's motorcycle and the 4th one is of my CUTE BOYS! They were matching for church and they looked so handsome!



Lastly, on Monday morning, we got up and drove over to the town that my brother and his family live in. We had lunch with them and then my brother took Matt and I for a ride in his "hot rod"--an old camaro he's been fixing up. There aren't any seat belts in it and the speedometer doesn't work...but I guarantee you I was writing an obituary in my head! "Brother and sister die in an afternoon Memorial day drive" Ha Ha! I was certainly counting on my angels that ride! Here's a couple of pics of Matt and my brother Doug.


So as you can see...we had a fun and eventful weekend. Oh..I can't end just yet. I have one more funny story to tell! Right after we got to the hotel on Saturday, I decided to let Brooklyn go down to the front desk all by herself and get us some extra pillows. There is a balcony that overlooks the front desk so I thought I would just watch her the whole way. (She's been really into getting to be a big-independent girl lately.) Well, Grant started throwing a fit about her getting to go and him having to stay so I thought..."what the heck...it's the middle of the afternoon and hardly anyone is here...I'll just let him go." So...they get on the elevator and I tell her to push #1. So I am watching and waiting for them to get off on the bottom floor and walk over to the front desk and I never see them. Then all of a sudden I start hearing this blood curdling, shrieking screaming coming from the elevator! Well, obviously my heart DROPS into my stomach as I have NO idea what is going on! Finally (after what seemed like an eternity) the elevator opens up and it's Grant in there...all alone...shaking and screaming like crazy! I grabbed him up and then start going up, floor by floor trying to find Brooklyn. A couple of times when the elevator would open, there'd be someone there waiting or walking by and I said "Have you seen a little red-headed girl?" They'd say no so I kept going up. Well, I finally found her on the top floor. She told me what had happened is that when she got in, she pushed the #1 button...but apparently someone else had already pushed the top floor button for the elevator to come up...so they went up instead of down. When they got there, she got off to see where they were and the door closed leaving her on the top floor and Grant in the elevator all alone! Anyway...they were both crying then. She was afraid she was going to be in trouble and he was still scared to death. I kept thinking what a DUMB idea that was! Anyway, what was really bad was people kept coming up to me later on and saying, "did your kids ever find you?" and that really made me feel bad! Ha Ha. It's funny now...but it was pretty scary then. Poor Grant...he's still totally scared of elevators now!

Well, it's 11:27 pm and I probably should get to bed. It's been a long day and I have a big day ahead tomorrow. We are having a cookout/swim party for our Sunday School class and I have to clean the whole house before that! Whew! Have a good weekend!!!