Spring Break In Reno

Happy Birthday, Corbin! He's sitting on a little John Deere tractor that he got for his first birthday. Just me and my mother-in-law went over there for a few days. I had days off work; Mike did not. His Spring Break comes later. Eric had other appointments, so he couldn't go. So it was just the two of us.
Little kids are SOOOOooo into electronics these days! I watched Hayden playing "Angry Birds" when we were there at Thanksgiving. He showed me how to play, actually. He has improved a LOT since then! I have not, sadly. I don't think I've played it since Thanksgiving, but then, that wasn't really on my list of things to do, either. ha. And I only have a "dumb" phone, not a smart phone. I s'pose there's a game on there somewhere to play, but I do good to just answer phone calls and text occasionally. And voicemail? Forget it! ;-) Too challenging.
Corbin was sharing his mom's green smoothie on Saturday morning. Katie and Casey didn't really have any time off of work other than the weekend while we were there, so since we got there on Thursday, we'd planned (Berenice and I) to drive over to Chico, CA to visit with Mike's older sister and some of her family. However, the weather was not in our favor. We checked the road conditions, reports, etc. and determined that we should not risk the 3 hour drive over the Sierra Nevada mountain passes. Snow tires or snow chains were required on both of the roads we would have had to travel on. The winds were awful. We opted to stay home at Katie's house. So, at noon, Katie picked up the boys from daycare and we got to spend some more time with them! That was fun to just play. We couldn't even watch TV because I don't know how to turn on their TV. Sound familiar? ha. But Hayden and I played trains and cars, and read and had lunch together. And the wind blew HARD all day long. We were glad we were just in the house, chillin' all day long. Literally. You have to wear a sweater at all times in their house on the main floor. It's chilly.

Saturday, Casey had a class to go to for his degree he's working on, but Katie was home. We'd wanted to try to go to a children's museum; however, Katie and her boys all had snotty noses, it was still very cold, snowy and windy, so we just stayed in. We go in a couple of movies over the course of our weekend ("I Don't Know How She Does It" and "Happy Feet 2"), and just had a good time relaxing. And wiping snotty noses. All day long. ha.

I made a trip to the grocery store on Saturday, too. And sorted baby clothes that Gail had sent. We may have even had a nap... It was relaxing.

OH! We learned how to play Hayden's favorite game, which is "Don't Eat Pete." Cute!!

We found out Saturday afternoon that one of the friends we wanted to see in Reno had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. That was sad news. She's a lady in Katie's ward, but Berenice has known the lady since they were on their mission in Hawaii, and had even attended their wedding!! They go way back. So, going to see sweet Sister Easter Stockman. We did that on Sunday evening.
Katie and Casey have a really nice, friendly ward. We enjoyed our meetings there.

We headed home on Monday morning, but dropped the boys off at daycare on our way out of town. That saved Katie a little driving and time that morning, and it had snowed and iced a little, so that saved her even MORE time, as she said drivers in her area slow to a crawl if there is any thing at all on the roads. It made for a rather rushed departure, as we had to time it just right in order to accommodate the schedule of the day care provider, but we made it with a minute or two to spared. But only a minute or two.

Berenice and I decided to take a more southern route home, rather than the usual highway 50, "America's Loneliest Highway." We went through Hawthorn, Tonapah, and Caliente. We had good weather, no incidents, so it was a "good drive," in my estimation. I listened to an audio book while I was driving, and almost finished the whole thing on that trip. What a lot of driving!! But we were grateful for a safe trip. Sorry that we missed out on seeing Anita in CA, but glad to have spent time with Katie and family.