Grandma to the rescue!

My dad grew up going to Rockport, MA for a couple of weeks during the summer.  His grandparents always stayed at the same Inn and he would go visit them so that he could do all of the fun things that little boys like to do...fish, swim, run around and (at least for my dad)...eat.

Needless to say, whenever they are in the area, he likes to try to get back there. Unfortunately, when I say "in the area," I mean our house, which is a good 2 hour drive from Rockport.  That said, it has been difficult to find the time to take the drive with the kids, but this last time they were in town, we actually had a couple of days with no real plans and figured that now that the kids are a bit older, it wouldn't be too much of a hike for them to handle.  So, the plan was to go to Rockport on the Monday that they were here.  Well, then, we had car issues and it had to go into the shop.  Not a huge deal, right?  We'll just go on Tuesday (and will tell both kids that we will go on Tuesday). 

Yeah...until Avery's homework sheet for the week came home on Monday night reminding us (of course, I swear that I never knew about this only to find out that it had been on the school calendar since day 1...ooops!) that her class would be doing some sort of standardized testing on Tuesday and Wednesday of that week and that it could not be missed.  WORST MOM OF THE YEAR!  So, here I had told Avery that a) she would be getting out of school and b) she was coming to Rockport with us and now?  Nada.  Not only Nada??? But, testing!  I felt horrible.  Not only that, but I had already decided not to take her out on Monday (because I didn't want her out for 2 days straight) and all of us (except for her) went to Newport for the day while she was in school.  WORST MOM OF THE YEAR!

In comes Grandma...she very selflessly offered to stay back and to pick up Avery after the testing was finished so that they could have a girl's day out and Alex, Dad and I could go to Rockport.  Unfortunately, when presented with the choice of what Avery wanted to do, she chose to go to a somewhat trashy mall to go shopping vs. going to get a pedicure, but whatever.  Needless to say, they had a great time. Avery got a cute shirt and dress and then got to come home and use her Easy Bake Oven with Grandma - one of her many favorite activities to do with her.

No wonder she loves Grandma so much...thanks again, mom!