Trip to Grandma's House

A few weeks ago Jacob and I went on our first solo trip to Grandma's house.  I was a little bit nervous about the plane ride, but he did great and slept through most of it.  It was neat to also spend time with my sister and her 4 year old daughter who came along with us.  Jacob had a great time swimming for the first time. There is a really neat rec center near my parent's home.  Jacob loved splashing, floating in the lazy river and his first dunks underwater.  I am excited to take him swimming again this summer.

My family has always been all about the factory tours.  Over the  years we have gone on tours of Hostess, Jelly Belly, Blue Diamond Almonds, 

Hershey's to name a few.  My mom actually located a local company that we had never been to, so,

 in the  middle of a blizzarding storm we headed over to Hammond's Candies.  It was cool to see first hand how they make all of their hard candies.  They start with a huge (70-90 lb. log of hard candy and  them stretch it out and make the various shapes.  One of my favorites was the Mitchell's Sweet, a marshmallow log surrounded in caramel.  Yummy!

Other highlights included playing with Grandma and Grandpa, baking both new (5 min. Artisan Bread) and old (Superman Cookies), dinner at my brother, Brent and his wife Lelia's house, lunch with everyone at Hibachi Japanese Steakhouse, making coffee filter butterflies and dragonflies with Grandma, Brent and Samantha's Marble Magic creation, Brent assisting on the messiest poopy diaper change of all time, (thanks Brent!  I bet you can't wait to have kids ;) ) Samantha feeling sick and getting the royal treatment at the airport on the ride home, (she rode in a wheelchair and we got to skip the long security line an go through the disabled lane instead) and Lelia's Peanut Butter Bomb Cupcakes, they are the best!