A Weekend with Our Niece

Skylee's parents went to San Francisco for the weekend. Skylee tells everyone that they went to see Hamilton. We volunteered to watch her while they were away. They dropped her off on Thursday night. We set her up in our spare bedroom. Since we don't have any furniture in there yet, she got to sleep on a cot. It turns out she loves the cot (when some friends came over she was so excited to show them her bed). She slept really well for us, through the night each night. She would usually come to find us between 7 and 8am if we hadn't gone to wake her up already. 

We got up on Friday and ate breakfast (eggs and strawberries and cereal for Skylee) and I took her to school. I was working right by her school this week so it worked perfectly for me to drop her off. After work, I picked her up. I love picking her up because as soon as I walk into her classroom she yells, "Uncle Eric" and has a huge smile on her face. We drove home listening to Disney music and "Hall of Fame". Once we were home Skylee wanted to go to the mountain park so she could roll down the giant hill. She really wanted to walk so we said sure. Turns out that wasn't our best idea. It was a pretty long walk for a little girl. She did fine on the way there, but Alison and I took turns carrying her on the way home. When we started waking back Skylee told us very emphatically that this was the worst walk ever. She did have a ton of fun at the park. She loves rolling down hills and this park is the ultimate hill. She rolled down a bunch of times always screaming in glee as she went.

When we made it home. We decided to take it easy for the rest of the night. Skylee watched "A Dog's Purpose" with us. She was excited to see the talking dogs. Alison fell asleep, but Skylee stayed up and finished the movie with me. We enjoyed watching the different lives of the dogs. I love the quote at the end of the movie when Bailey summarizes a dog's purpose:

"Have fun, obviously. Whenever possible, find someone to save and save them. Lick the ones you love. Don’t get all sad-faced about what happened and scrunchy-faced about what could. Just be here now. Be. Here. Now. That’s a dog’s purpose."

We slept in a little bit on Saturday. When Skylee woke up she came into our bedroom and laid down in bed with us until we are ready to get up. We had breakfast (more eggs and strawberries) and I took Tex on a quick walk while Alison helped Skylee get ready for the day. While I was running around a nearby park a bee landed on my toe and stung me. I was so mad. I ran home with Tex and treated it. 

Then I took Skylee to see Cars 3 (Alison stayed home because she needed to work on some homework). Skylee loves going to the movies. We got popcorn and some junior mints. We were standing in line and she picked them up and told me how much she liked them and that she was so excited for me to try them. So of course I got them for her. We sat down to watch the movie and Skylee goes oh no we forgot to get a drink. When she needed to go to the bathroom we stopped to get some root beer. The movie was good. Skylee loved watching Lightning McQueen and his new friend Cruz Ramirez. 

When we got home we spent a couple of hours sitting out on our porch. Alison read and Skylee played on the iPad. Tex was out. It was such a pleasant day. 

Our friends Kyle and Sarah brought other boys over and we took them to the splash pad. The really cool one close to us was closed so we went to one over in Riverton. It was okay. The water was pretty cold so the kids got tired of running through it and just wanted to play on the playground. We were not super prepared and forgot to bring a towel for Skylee, but fortunately, Kyle and Sarah had an extra one and bailed us out. 

We went to dinner on Saturday night at Nielson's frozen custard. Kyle and Sarah being experienced parents, asked for them to hold the custard until after their boys ate their food. We did not have this wisdom so Skylee got to eat her custard before her meal. We also got her a grilled cheese and French fries. After she finished her ice cream she ate about three bites of the grilled cheese before she said she was done with it. Instead, she spied my ice cream (about 1/3 was left). She told me that if I wasn't going to finish it she would be happy to eat it for me. Being a nice uncle I let her finish it off and I finished off her grilled cheese. Later she ate her fries. We were kind of wrapping up dinner and Skylee hadn't eaten fries for a little bit (there were a couple left) so Alison ate the fries and threw away the remaining ketchup. About five minutes later Skylee asked Alison what happened to her ketchup and fries. When Alison told her they were gone Skylee replied, "you are ruining my life." It was pretty funny.

 After Kyle and Sarah went home we went to visit Grandma Aleene. We wanted to make sure she was doing okay. Skylee loves her grandma great. She had fun watering all of the plants. She must have filled up the watering can at least 10 times. She also showed us how she could go through the dog door like Tex and Misty. 

We went home and went for another walk. This time we walked to a nearby park. This was Skylee's favorite park that we visited. When we left she told us, that was a wonderful park! She loved it because there were really big slides, lots of ropes to climb and a zip line. She loved the zip line. After the first couple of rides, we told her we needed to leave pretty soon and she negotiated 5 more rides. That seemed pretty reasonable so we went with it. She loved flying across the park. She would scream with glee each time she rode. 

On Sunday we slept in again (Skylee didn't get up until 8am). When she got up she was hungry and we ate breakfast (eggs and strawberries again). We hung around the house until it was time for church. 

Skylee let us know we needed two things for her to make through the church meeting - Cheerios and a coloring book. We brought a big bag of Cheerios and a giant coloring book. She did really well in our primary. She did come to find Alison during Sunday school because she needed to go to the bathroom. 

After church, we took Skylee for a walk around the lake. She was apparently super tired after all of our weekend adventures because she fell asleep in the car. We borrowed Debbie's stroller and when we got to the lake we transferred Skylee to the stroller and she slept for most of our walk. 

We stopped by our house after the walk so that we could get some ice water (Skylee loves drinking ice water). She also decided she was hungry. When she opened the fridge she saw a new pack of eggs and asked Alison, Are these eggs for children to eat? They were so we made her some eggs and strawberries. 

After Skylee finished eating we went back over to her favorite park. She just loved all of the things she could climb on and slide down. Everything at this park brought her joy, especially the zip line. We played there until the sun went down. 

Monday was our last day with Skylee. We woke up and dropped Skylee off on our way to work. Alison picked her up on her way home. We made turkey burgers and fries for dinner because we knew that was something Skylee would eat. The only thing was that her burger was so charbroiled she didn't want to eat it because it was "smoky". Alison was super nice and switched with Skylee. 

We got some bread after dinner and went to Daybreak lake to feed ducks. On Sunday during our walk, Skylee said she wanted to feed ducks so we made sure to make it happen. We love Daybreak. There are so many fun parks and activities. We had so many fun experiences this weekend around Daybreak with Skylee.

We came home and packed her stuff up and then Blake and Debbie came to pick her up so that they could take her to the airport to get her parents. We are going to miss having Skylee around. We had so much fun and enjoyed spending some quality time with her. We love our niece.