Arkansas Trip - Part 2

Quick Edit to Part 1 - or better yet "Lesson on Acquiring Hotel Rooms"

I realized that I did not include a valuable lesson learned in my earlier post from the first part of our drive to Arkansas. Our first hotel stay in Albuquerque, proved to be fitness training for Guya and me. We arrived late, after 11:00 pm and Guya went into the Hampton Inn we found to get a room. They were pretty booked but told her they had one double bed room left we could have. We parted and then managed to load ourselves up with sleeping kids, backpacks, beloved blankets and suitcases to keep from having to make a second trip. We thought we were being smart. HaHa! We stumbled into the hotel, nearly dropping a kid or two, dropped the big suitcase which I managed to squat down just enough to grab the handle and put it back upright. The real trick wasn't the squatting is was keeping from peeing my pants since we were laughing at ourselves so hard and REALLY had to pee! I'm sure any outsider would have sworn we were drunk. So after picking up the suitcase we made it to the elevator, up 3 floors and to our room. Ahhh...we were going to rest...that is until we saw the trash on the floor and obvious uncleaned room. We nearly cried. By now the kids were awake and the thought of lugging everything back down made us miserable. Guya took the easy job and went back down to get another room. Miraculously they found another double bed room (hmmm....makes you wonder, huh?) and we gathered our stuff and went up another floor to a clean room. This room was better even if the toilet took two flushes to do anything and the sink didn't drain right.

So, lesson learned - check the hotel room BEFORE lugging everything out of the car and to the room!

Part 2

Upon arriving in Mountain Home, Monday morning, Aunt Kim guided us to the Hospice Home to visit Grandma Carol. The hospice center is fairly new and staffed with some of the nicest most hospitable people I've met. They have a family room stocked with a refrigerator, vending machines, microwave, tables, chairs, couches, two TVs, kid play area, collection of reading material and even a computer with Internet access! We spent some good quality time with Grandma that first afternoon until we could tell we were wearing her out. Around 3:oo pm or so Aunt Kim and Cousin Laurie (who was visiting from Illinois) led us to our hotel to drop off our stuff and we then followed them on to grandma's house to have dinner, hang out and visit with everyone.

The nurses were so sweet to bring in a couple of baby dolls for Boopy to play with. She enjoyed sharing them with Grandma.

Lots of love for Grandma.

Great picture of Grandma! Not taken by me but by Big Boy! Although I did have to do a bit of cropping, he's getting pretty good with my camera!

The kids really enjoyed the play area. They had it all to themselves the whole time we were there. We even took the legos into Grandma's room for them to play with while we visited.

Big Boy and Aunt Kim do some bonding.

Back at Grandma's house, Monday evening. Grandpa Frank had put in these crazy monkey weather veins in their front yard that has become the trademark for the house. Boopy really loved getting to check out the monkeys.

Uncle Tim scored big points when he pulled out two boxes of matchbox cars for the kids to play with! I think he had nearly as much fun as the kids!

Hanging out with Laurie & Aunt Kim at Grandma's house.

There's nothing more fun than making Boopy have a crazy face! At least she loves her Aunt Guya enough to let her torture her!

After a rousing game of attack Uncle Tim, the kids were rewarded by homemade chocolate milkshakes. I think they ended up being a bit more like chocolate milk when Big Boy poured a little too much milk in the mixer. Regardless, they enjoyed them!

Tuesday morning brought a little bit of excitement to our stay in Mountain Home. While getting ready in the morning to go to see Grandma, the fire alarm went off in the hotel. I stuck my head out the door and asked some hotel employees who happened to be in the hallway if the alarm was real. I told Guya and I don't think I've seen her ever get dressed that fast! Guya grabbed Big Boy, his shoes and the diaper bag while I grabbed Boopy, her blanket, the camera bag and purses. We literally ran down the stairs not sure what to expect when we got down to the lobby. We were ushered outside with the everyone else. Actually everyone else only ended up being hotel employees. All the other guests apparently had decided to stay in the rooms and wait for smoke before they believed the alarm. Needless to say, we enjoyed a nice adrenaline rush just to be told to it was safe to return to our room. There indeed was no fire but the sprinkler system had a pipe burst or some storm water had gotten in and triggered the alarm. Better safe than sorry though - especially with the little ones. At least the alarm didn't phase the kids, they just went along for the ride. Either they are really easy going or they're just used to Mama & Auntie "Guya" acting slightly crazy. Perhaps a little bit of both!

After our hotel excitement, we checked out of the hotel, assuring them it had nothing to do with the alarm, it was just that our Uncle invited us to save the cash and stay with the family at Grandma's house. We loaded our stuff in the car, in the pouring rain and headed down to see Grandma. Grandma had had a rough morning so far so after only 5 minutes it was obvious she needed to rest so we went to the family room to hang out for a while. In our down time while Grandma was resting we enjoyed visited with Aunt Deb, Aunt Kim, Cousin Laurie. This was taken Tuesday afternoon, just before Aunt Kim & Laurie had to leave. It was nice that our visits overlapped. With everyone living all over the United States we rarely ever see each other in person. It was also during this time that we had some good heart to hearts with our parents and encouraged them to go ahead and come out now to assure a quality goodbye with Grandma. Based on her status and recommendations from the nurses, there was not question that if Dad wanted to visit with Grandma while she wasn't sedated he needed to come soon. It didn't take Dad to book a ticket for him and Mom into Tulsa, OK for the next night. (Mountain Home isn't really near any airports and is only 4 hours from Tulsa or Little Rock)

Aunt Deb, Aunt Kim, Big Boy, Laurie, Guya, Boopy