When Dad goes away, Mom and Kid go to Idaho

Deg was recently gone for 9 days (read: a thousand days) to Kentucky/Chicago for a business trip. Last year, the company bought me a ticket to go to Kentucky and run around my old stomping grounds. This year... not so much. But I should be grateful for that one time that they did, right? That left me and The Deej alone with each other for 9 days (read: a thousand days). Did I mention that he's 2? And did I also mention that he's been working on all 4 of his 2 year molars? Needless to say, I was worried that one of us wouldn't make it out of the 9 days alive. Luckily, I have amazing friends in NV who helped me out, and I have amazing parents who let us come crash with them for a few days. And, oh, how glorious Idaho in September is! I had to put a jacket on DJ, and we were required to wear pants rather than shorts! Perish the thought! It was awesome and I loved every second of being home with my parents. Ready for the pictures? I know you are!

The night before our trip, we went on a mom/son date. We got some truly terrible Mexican food at a place we'd never been to before, so at least we had an adventure, right?

We needed to wash the taste of terrible Mexican food out of our mouths, so we went to a self serve fro-yo joint next door. DJ chose gummy bears, gummy worms, and gummy beads to go on the ice cream, and proceeded to eat only that. But honestly, no complaints here!

DJ is captivated by pianos. I was chatting with my mom, and all the sudden, I heard him softly plinking away in the other room. He doesn't bang on them and is very insistent that there be sheet music in front of him. Perhaps we should purchase one of these. Hang on while I add that to my list of things we should buy...

DJ loves Grandpa's garden. He always finds a bowl/bucket/basket and tells me he needs to go to the garden. The tomatoes were ripe this time, so he got to pick and eat two of those bad boys (legitimately a favorite food of his). Then we moved on to the carrots, which he just can't get over. I mean, how cool is it to pull some green leaves and have a bright orange jewel pop out of the dirt?

My parents' neighborhood has a cute little park, so we went over there a few times to let someone get out his energy.

Good thing DJ is so conscientious as to fill Grandma's car up with gas! (No actual gas or cars were hurt!)

One evening, DJ had a hankering for Frozen. Because he is a kid and that is what kids do. So my cute dad snuggled up with him and they watched the whole thing, just the two of them. Seriously, I got told to, "Go 'way, Mommy! Is for Gwampa!"

Sleeping beauties

My brothers loved Big Wheels. They would ride them until they would wear right through those hard plastic wheels! So my mom jumped at the chance to buy her second generation of Big Wheels, and DJ loved having his own "motorcycle." He was too short to hit the pedals, so he just pushed with his feet, but you couldn't have convinced him that this wasn't exactly how it was meant to work!

One rainy afternoon, we went to Leo's Place (a local restaurant/arcade/playland) and DJ went nuts over the arcade games. I didn't put any tokens in the driving game because it wouldn't have been fun for him, but he loved to sit there and drive this thing. And then we played probably 10 rounds of ski ball. Seriously, he was in heaven!

The arcade games even eclipsed riding these sweet awesome kiddie rides, and that's saying something!

All good things must come to an end. We had so much fun hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa because they are awesome. And DJ has insisted we need to get on a plane and go back nearly every day since.