Rose, Claire, Ella and I even visited a bog and got to see them harvesting cranberries! It was pretty fun to watch, and now I have 5# of cranberries in the freezer just waiting to be cooked/baked :)
This past weekend my parents came to visit. Mike stayed home to mow on Friday while the rest of us went out to the Good Earth (my mom's favorite restaurant) for dinner. I used to hate that restaurant as a kid because it was "too healthy," but now I love it! Proof that we do, indeed, turn into our parents as we get older.
On Saturday we were registered for the "family mile" race of the Twin Cities Marathon weekend. Rose loves to run, so I thought this would be a good experience for us to do something as a family that she would really enjoy. Unfortunately, she somehow tripped as we were about to start the race, and thus the event was a bit spoiled by a badly skinned knee. :(
In addition, apparently my pre-race descriptions were not very accurate, because Rose had somehow gotten it in her head that we would be running inside, with only a few other people, over bouncy obstacles. (In other words, she thought a race was kind of like going to Pump It Up.) As a result, she was quite disappointed. But, the good news is that she managed to persevere (mostly by just walking rather than running), and the medal was at least a bit of a consolation for her. We'll see if she ever wants to try a race again...
After the race, we all went out to lunch at Red Cow, which is totally my new favorite restaurant. YUM. (I highly recommend that you just go. Seriously.)
Then we split up for "nap time," during which I tried my hand at making another type of layer cake. (I'm having so much fun baking! Now I just need more people to take the finished products off my hands. Volunteers?)
For dinner we went to Grammy and Grandpa's.We chatted, went for a walk, read stories (books or on our phones), relaxed on their comfy couches, and had a delicious fried chicken dinner. My dad even tried out Jack's inversion table!
My parents went home on Sunday morning, and we spent the rest of the day doing our usual Sunday routine (i.e., grocery shopping, watching football, and eating a yummy dinner). I also did some reflecting. I notice that I can often get short tempered around my parents, and it really bothers me that I can't be more patient. I have previously spent a lot of mental effort trying to figure out what they're doing wrong to set me off (mature, I know), but recently I switched to trying to figure out what might be wrong with me. And I finally have a working hypothesis: just as I have observed that my dad may be sensitive to the perception of being wrong, I too am highly sensitive to perceiving that others think I'm doing something wrong. (Example #2 of "we turn into our parents as we get older.") So when my dad asks a million questions or tells me how he thinks something should be done, my brain somehow interprets that as him not trusting my judgment. Which, with the benefit of hindsight and perspective, I really don't think he's trying to do, and yet that's where my mind goes. So I'm going to work on just trusting my own judgment so it doesn't feel so personal if I think someone else thinks differently, and I'm also going to publicly say "I'm sorry, Dad, for being short-tempered!"
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