Grandpa and Grandpa Gasser Come to Visit!

Earlier this month we were lucky enough to have Grandma and Grandpa (Papa) Gasser come to visit! They weren't here for nearly long enough, only a week, but sometimes we just have to take what we can get and run with it. We did a lot of fun things with the kids and got to spend a lot of time visiting. It was nice to have a house instead of an apartment so we could talk them into staying with us instead of Bev or Vonnie!

Emmett regularly begs to go to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point, and I regularly turn him down because it is far away. For the last month, however, I'd been promising him that when Grandma and Papa got here we'd finally get to go. Emmett had a wonderful time, but Grandpa might have had even more fun, I'm really not sure. :)

At the beginning of the museum there is a hands on section that they have various scientific displays and experiments you can participate in. With the one Grandma is standing on, if you spin the bike wheel and then tilt it in different directions, it will turn the stand you're on. It was pretty fun, but Bethany thought it was boring.

I tried making the sailboats go various directions by moving the sail to catch wind from a fan. I don't think I'll ever make a good sailor. From the rate Grandpa was going, I don't think he'll ever be much of a sailor either. :)

As you can see, Bethany wasn't too enthusiastic about the dinosaur exhibits. On the other hand, even though she might have been a little bored, she wasn't screaming either and was in a remarkably good mood. I think she enjoyed her little stroller ride.

Grandma and Emmett enjoyed playing dinosaurs.

 Emmett gets a little scared of the Utah raptor skeleton each time we go. It does have some pretty intimidating teeth and claws!

Standing in front of the stegosaurus.

In this case, Emmett is too distracted by Grandpa's shiny head to pay much attention to the scary raptor next to him.

We had fun playing with the dinosaurs at the water and sand exhibit.

And of course it's always cool to ride the triceratops statue.

Can you tell Emmett was getting a little tired of posing for photos? Also, let it be noted that Bethany is now wearing different clothes than she was at the beginning of the day. She went potty on Grandpa Gasser. Too bad he didn't have his own change of clothes as well! Ah, making memories with little ones! :)

Even though the kids were tired, we still made the last ditch effort to take them over to "Farm Country" and see the animals. Emmett loved riding on his pony and was very brave about it. He was a little nervous at first when we put him up in the saddle and didn't walk next to him, but he quickly warmed up to it as we clapped and cheered for our "Cowboy Emmett" each time he rode past us.

Do we spoil this boy with dinosaurs and pony rides? Yes. Yes, we do. And I love it!

Riding on the tractors.

Grandpa and Bethany looking at the bunnies.

In prison. Someday we'll lock them up for good!

I'm not sure outlaws should look so happy...

On day two of Grandma and Grandpa's visit, we just hung around the house and were lazy. Playing with Grandma and Grandpa all day has worn this kid out! Uncle Craig came over for dinner and we enjoyed a meal together and a nice visit with him.

After the kids were in bed that night, Mom and I decided to make some soap for her Christmas presents. Craig got to see our "mad scientist" side. He left early. I can't figure out why...

Here's Grandma carefully mixing the lye solution. This is by far the stinkiest part of making soap, so we do it outside. The fumes choke, burn and suffocate. It's really nasty stuff, but she handled it like a pro!

Still outside with the lye solution. I only got in the picture after most of the fumes were gone. You'll notice that we are both in long sleeves. It's not cold, we were actually dying from the summer heat, but we don't want to chance getting any of that lye on our skin!

Grandma very carefully measured out all the ingredients while I stood behind her and jarred her arm. Poor Grandma. She was going to make 24 bars of soap to give as gifts to friends, but then Casey and I realized that we only had enough lye to do half of that. We had to measure all our ingredients twice so it took an EXTRA long time to make the soap. Our favorite part of the evening, by far, was when we were taking the temperature of our soapy concoction to see if the chemical reaction had started and Grandma dropped the thermometer into the lye solution. I panicked a little before reaching in and grabbing it, and the lye had already destroyed the thermometer. We weren't sure if we should blend it anymore, so I did just a little too much and the soap began to set before we could get it poured all the way into the mold. It was setting too fast to use the molds that Grandma had wanted, so we had to put the entire batch into our cylinder PVC pipe mold. It looked clumpy, messy, and awful, and I felt so bad, but we didn't give up hope entirely. Sometimes we can be pleasantly surprised when the soaps come out of our molds. Trying to get the soap out was another disaster of it's own, as you will shortly see. In the meantime, we put it in the basement for the next two days so the chemistry could balance out.

Grandma spent a day in Bluffdale with her sisters, so we got to hang out with Grandpa. We went to the Hill Field Aerospace Museum and had a fantastic time! The best part about the museum is it's FREE!

Bethany enjoyed looking at the planes with Grandpa.

She had missed her nap earlier in the day, however, so she spent most of her time sound asleep in my arms. I'm glad she's not a particularly heavy baby because otherwise I think I would have gotten pretty tired!

Grandpa surprised us by bringing his harmonica. He and Emmett had a great time playing music together.

Bethany enjoyed dancing while the band played.

We also went to the Planetarium and saw a show there called, "This Little Planet" on the dome movie screne. Emmett is convinced that we weren't in a theater but flying in a space ship. The movie gave a tour of our solar system and when it showed images of the earth, Emmett screamed, "THAT'S ERF! THAT'S OUR PLANET!" Bethany was amazingly cooperative and sat in my lap content to eat puffs through the entire show.

When the show was done we went for a walk on the moon.

And on Mars. We don't need space suits to walk on Mars or the moon, but it's quite important to always come prepared with a sippy cup.

While Grandma and Grandpa were in town, Bethany figured out how to climb stairs! She doesn't know how to go down them, however, and while she loves to climb into the entryway here, she tends to get stuck and scream a lot. Here's Emmett being a sweet big brother and trying to demonstrate for Bethany how to crawl down the step.

Sweet little girl was just too scared to try it by herself. She still hasn't made it down more than twice on her own. Cute little bug!

We tried to get Mom's soap out of the PVC pipe the night before they were supposed to go home, but we couldn't do it. Additionally, we kind of ruined half of the soap by pushing another smaller PVC pipe halfway through it and lodging a piece of cardboard into the soap in our efforts to get it out. We left it to freeze overnight and then in the morning tried again.

It was hard to get out. REALLY HARD TO GET OUT.

And it took a lot of muscle and a very long time.

If it wasn't for Emmett, I'm not sure we would have ever been able to get it out.

I don't think the scars in that tree will ever heal. Good think we're probably going to cut it down anyway.

One last effort!!

And Ta Da! We did it! Grandma finally got her soap! Too bad she's only able to use about half of it as gifts since the rest of it was so disfigured by our efforts to remove it! Oh what an experience! I don't think we succeeded in convincing her to take up soaping as a regular hobby...

Once they had their soap they were ready to start the trip home. One last photo in front of the Buick with the grand kids. We sure love and miss you guys! Thanks for coming to visit us!