Getting some quality time

My dad recently had knee surgery and will be recovering in the Veterans Home near his house, which means my mom will be home by herself for a couple weeks. So I drove down to their home over the weekend so I could help my mom out with some stuff around their home and spend some time just the two of us.

Well, not really just the two of us. A couple weeks ago they got some new Siamese kittens named Cheech and Chong. They are two little boys that were pretty scared of me when I first showed up. I think I was the first person outside of my parents that they had met.

These two little male kittens are full of energy and spent most of their time playing with each other and running all over the place.

They did take plenty of breaks from playing to lay with their two big sisters that are about a year and a half old now. My mom had Siamese cats growing up and now she has four little ones that she spoils.

My parents live right by Zions National Park in Southern Utah and the scenery is pretty magical there. If it werent for the extreme heat, I would love to move down there. The air is so much more clean the further you get away from the city area where we live. I took this picture from the table of a little restaurant that we got a burger from.

For dinner one night, I made crepes. My mom cut up the strawberries and put a lot of sugar on them. It was way more sugar than I normally put on them back home, but they did taste pretty good.

My mom made some fresh whipped cream and when she was done, she handed me one of the beaters to lick and she had the other one. It was just like when I was little and would help her make cakes or icing and we would lick off the beaters after.

The crepes turned out pretty good and I ate a few of them.

One other really cool thing about Southern Utah is the sunsets are pretty amazing. These were taken right outside my parent's front door.

I would love to have sunsets like this every night. They are way better than the ones I get to see each night. We have way too many houses in my area.

While I was there, my mom taught me how to do some crafts with a chalk paint. This was my first one I made. She gave me a shit load of stuff to be able to create a bunch more of them with my wife and kids. It will be cool to make these things to decorate our homes with.

The drive back home was really nice and peaceful. I guess we have monsoons moving through Utah and the sky was super cool. The rain wasn't bad when it did rain, but it was just cool to watch the lightning dancing across the sky.

It is about a four hour drive to get home and I usually dread the drive, but this trip was pretty relaxing. I just set the cruise control in my car and turn on the lane assist and just watched the scenery.

It was nice to get away and spend some quality time with my mom, but it is so nice to be back home with my best friend. We are really enjoying this weather we are having. It is a lot cooler with all these storms and they are making the sky look awesome.

It was a great trip, but I was ready to be home and sleep in my bed and not on an old bunk bed that my kids slept on when they visited my parent's house. One of these days they really need to upgrade the furniture in their extra rooms so adults can sleep comfortably on them. Especially since so many of their grandkids are adults now. Time needs to slow down.