my dad came to visit on Saturday

Violet was ecstatic to see Grandpa Jon on Saturday! I had sledding on the calendar for today, and I'm glad he came down because he brought 2 sleds (we don't have any). Dad got here around 10 am. I actually woke up thinking that Violet needed snowpants, so after breakfast, I went to Target by myself and got her a pair of snowpants. I got back home just minutes after he arrived. She got us started on a game of Candyland right away. We played for awhile, then she got bored. Calvin took a nap and V had some mac and cheese. Dave stayed home with Calvin while we went sledding. I wasn't feeling so great..flu-like symptoms...so I took some Theraflu stuff and that seemed to help me feel good enough to brave the cold outside on the sledding trip. This was a MOPS organized sledding trip, but only 2 others showed up besides us. It was from 2-4 pm, bad timing for naps...but I reluctantly let her stay awake and skip her nap so she could go. We got her all bundled up and left at 2 pm. The first sledding site was at the corner of Hudson and Viking Road. It wasn't the best place - we didn't know where to go, and that corner was insanely windy. So we opted for a different location - Hope Martin Park at the corner of Fletcher and University right behind the big flood gates. There is a nice big hill right by the parking area that was much better. It was drugery going up the hill. Dad had some shoes on with attached spikes which worked much better than my slippery boots! I helped V up the hill while Dad would carry up the sleds. He brought a blue circle spinner sled and a sleigh-type sled with metal sliders. Violet was so excited to go down the hill. She was at the top copying us saying "Whew! That was tough! Man! It is slippery out here!...and on and on..." It was so funny. Her first ride was on the blue circle sled. She held on tight and as soon as I pushed her down the hill, it turned a 180 so she went down the hill by herself backwards. But she held on and didn't fall over. The next few times she went down she went on the sleigh sled, which was much better - it went straight and fast. She got to the bottom the first time and said "I did it!" After doing that a few more times, we decided it was about time to go. The wind had picked up and at times, we had 30 mph gusts of wind blowing on us - the snow bits felt like sand was blasting at our faces. We got back in the car and enjoyed m&m cookies and hot chocolate which one of my friends brought along in her car. Violet was so wiped. She sat in her car seat with her head to the side, just resting with that glassy-eyed pooped look on her face. The wind was fierce, causing completely white-out conditions at some points on our car drive back to the house. I filled up the car with gas at Walmart and got a quick car wash on the way home too. Violet was too scared of the car wash. Just the sight of the car wash building made her burst into tears. She got out of her car seat and sat in the front seat with my dad just to feel comfortable sitting there. While the car wash was running, we told her the van was taking a shower, just like we take showers. She seemed OK with that. She was hyper-whiney-tired by the time we got home. She konked out in her bed after a little while, and we tried waking her up around 5:30. She was NOT ready to wake up at that time, so she finished off her nap on the living room couch. Just then dad realized he couldn't find his keys. After searching through every place he could think of, he concluded that the keys must have fallen out of his pocked while sledding on the sled hill. So Dave and dad went back to find them - and immediately noticed them sitting in the snow right at the spot where he went down backwards. The late nap made her sleep right through supper...but she woke up at 7:30 ready to play full force again....so she ate then and was up til 10:30 pm that night. We rented the movie "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and watched it - turned out to be entertaining!