Vacation Part 3

On Father's Day we arrived in Yuma. The day before, Grandpa Ken had been moved into a nursing home for some rehabilitation to strength his legs so that he can use his walker and have some mobility. He'd been in the hospital the week before. So we went straight to their house to see Grandma Donna. Joshua was so excited to be there - it's been almost three years since we last were able to go and visit. This was the first time that Nathaniel had seen these great-grandparents. As usual, it took him a few minutes to decide if he was going to be friendly with these new people. And as usual, he was quickly laughing and smiling and refusing to leave Great-Grandma Donna's lap to go back to Mommy. Grandma took us over to the nursing home and we got to visit with Grandpa a little bit. (yes, this is how the picture is supposed to be!)He has decided that he's going to call Nathaniel "Kenny" since one of his middle names in Kenneth (in honor of this great-grandpa and uncles on both sides of the family). Joshua thought that was funny and now calls Nathaniel Kenny every once in awhile. Grandpa looked pretty beat up - that's not a result of the care at the nursing home! He'd fallen a few days before at home and ended up with quite the black eye as well as a banged up arm.
We were in Yuma until Wednesday afternoon. Each day we went and visited Grandpa a couple of times. We ran a few errands and tried to find things to help Grandma with around the house. On Tuesday, Brian and Joshua went to a park and watched some Marine helicopter manuevers. A lot of practice, etc. for troops heading to the Middle East goes on in the desert area there because of similarities to conditions in the Middle East. Brian was pretty excited because they got to see several Chinook helicopters (the ones with two propellers on top). Joshua got his picture taken with a Marine...and got corrected by said Marine when asked if he was an Army guy...the Marine was quick to tell him that he was a Marine NOT an Army guy. The "highlight" for Joshua was getting bitten by red ants. Brian has told him stories about getting bitten by little red ants when he was a kid visiting HIS grandparents in Eastern Arizona...well, some large red ants discovered their feet while watching the helicopters and had a few nibbles! So now Joshua has his own red ant story to tell his children some day :)
Nathaniel seemed to really enjoy meeting his great-grandparents. He was fascinated with Great-Grandpa's mustache. From the looks of this old picture of me, it looks like I was pretty entranced by it, too, as a child.

Nathaniel with Great-Grandpa Ken Hurlbut - June 2007 - about 9.5 months old

Beth with Grandpa Ken Hurlbut - April 1974 - 9 months old










It was sad to leave...Joshua didn't want to...he wanted to stay longer. We all did. We so hope it isn't another 2 1/2 years until we visit again. Especially not with Grandpa being 79 and in poor health and Grandma turning 81 later this year. Somehow we'll have to try and make it down a little closer to sooner than later. But we definitely plan to make that trip in the fall or winter and NOT summer!