At least Grandpa loves us

The kids were very excited about Grandpa Wahlquist coming to visit for Thanksgiving. And since grandpa has been eating sardines and canned soup for the last three months (because grandma is out helping the Utah cousins) I am sure he was also excited. He arrived Wednesday evening and immediately began playing Wii

Once he figured out that Tanner was unbeatable at bowling he gave up and tried a game that he felt he was sure to win

You can see from the expression on his face that the kids cleaned him out and left him begging for a bailout in the end.

On thanksgiving we went to the other grandma's house and ate a wonderful meal. Afterwards there was some napping, football watching, and snuggling.

Friday we (minus Kenna, Rylee, and Mary) decided to get out of the house and go downtown. Our first stop was the Findlay market. This is a sort of farmer's market downtown with a bunch of different vendors and is supposed be pretty fun. As we arrived we noticed there was plenty of parking in front of the boarded up buildings on either side of the market. And judging from all the men hanging around on the street corners most people walked anyway. So clutching my children and with a nervous glance back at the van we walked into the market. The first thing we noticed was that only 2 or 3 vendors were actually opened. We overheard one of the vendors tell another confused visitor that the Friday after Thanksgiving is the slowest day of the year for the market and so most vendors don't even show up. With that we turned around and hurried back to the van and moved on to "Plan B"

What was "Plan B," you ask. A movie? No. A Zoo? No. A children's museum? Sadly, no. "Plan B" for us was the Freedom Center Underground Railroad museum. That's right, a museum dedicated to preserving the memory of the struggle for freedom for runaway slaves. Initially, I thought it would be a very interesting museum, and in fact, it was. But I wasn't thinking like a 6, 5, or 3 year-old. The museum didn't have any real hands-on displays but there was a very dramatic short film hosted by Oprah Winfrey that depicted a very dangerous night time river crossing of two slaves. There were several angry slave owners with guns who repeatedly shot at the slaves and some very brave people who helped them avoid the barking dogs and gunfire. Sounds like loads of fun, right! I forgot to mention only one of the slaves made it. You'll notice I'm not posting any pictures of the museum because who wants to see pictures of frightened children. We would've gone on to "Plan C" but the Holocaust museum was too far away.

Later that night we took grandpa out for a nice dinner at a little local restaurant we like. Afterwards we took him to Graeter's Ice Cream shop where he got a preview of what we will be eating in heaven. Then, sadly the next day he had to leave and hurry back to Washington D.C. and help Bush and Cheney funnel as much money as possible to Halliburton before Obama threw them out like a bunch of moneychangers in a temple.