Another Visit with Jocelyn

I had a great visit with Jocelyn and her parents over the weekend. I had to be in Phoenix for a business meeting on Monday evening, so I flew down on Friday evening and was able to spend the entire weekend with the family. I hadn't seen Jocelyn of her daddy since before Christmas, so it was a great opportunity for me to get reacquainted with my youngest granddaughter, who has grown so much since I last visited her. Who would think that a mere 4 months would make so much difference?

On Saturday we essentially spent the morning letting her get familiar with me again. She's a bit of a shy baby, so you can't just snatch her up and expect her to take right to you. So I simply sat in the floor and let her approach me. Pretty quickly were were playing with her Lego blocks, throwing her big, blue ball back and forth (she's getting pretty good at that), and putting her puzzles together. While she's definitely a daddy's girl, I think she enjoyed playing with her "Papa."

Her parents have her on a good schedule and routine. Much like her grandmama, she needs time to fully awaken, so she gets an hour of Yo Gabba Gabba in the morning. He daddy seems to like the show, but I think her mommy just barely handles it. After breakfast, she gets playtime, and on Saturday and Sunday that meant we got down in the floor and scattered toys everywhere. She goes down for about a two hour nap after lunch, so on Saturday I took advantage of that time to go for a walk and to dry out from all the rain we've been getting in Oregon lately.

The weather was beautiful in the Phoenix area over the weekend. The heat wasn't bad at all and the temperatures stayed mainly in the 80's, so  I had a nice long walk and grabbed a burrito for lunch while I was out.  One thing I noticed on my walk was the large number of Harley-Davidson motorcyle riders out and about. I kid you not, during my 90 minute walk I bet I saw a couple of dozen riders, all but a couple of them on Harleys. Arizona doesn't have a helmet law, so the vast majority of them were riding without protective head gear, and I saw a at least 3 riders in shorts and tank tops. Come on, it wan't that warm.

Later Saturday afternoon we went to tour the house that Jeremy and Kristin have made an offer on. It's a short sale, so they're getting a great deal. At the moment, their loan is approved and they are just waiting for the banks on the seller's side of the transaction to approve the sale. With any luck they will be able to move into the house in a few weeks.

I went along with them to see the house, watch Jocelyn and take some photos for them. The house has 3100 square feet of floor space, a pool, a hot tub, and an exterior kitchen area. It's very nice and I do hope they're able to conclude the sale soon. Jocelyn seem to like the house, especially the stairs. She and I went exploring on our own and she wandered from room to room checking out all the closets.

On Sunday we went to the zoo. The Phoenix zoo is smaller, but well designed. The desert landscape certainly lends itself to the zoo's design and inhabitants. The zoo features giraffes, gazelles, tigers, cheetahs, and lions for the larger animals, and a smattering of smaller creatures such as otters, meerkats, and African wild dogs. And there were squirrels everywhere. I think they were freaking out Jeremy a little bit since they got so close to the people.

The zoo features a lovely carousel, and I'm not sure who enjoyed it most, Jeremy or Jocelyn. His smile was certainly bigger than hers.  They also have a small water park area with slides, sprayers and a tunnel.  It was hot enough that day to certainly make it tempting for all the kids. There is a little pond adjacent to the water play area, and Jocelyn really wanted to jump into it. She got a little pissed when her daddy would let her jump in - though, I do think she managed to get at least one foot into the water.

One neat thing about the Phoeniz zoo is that they have a monkey enclosure where the zoo patrons can actually enter a fenced area where a number of monkeys are free to roam within the enclosure. You were prohibted from touching the monkeys or getting too close, but the little creatures were right there in the trees or in platforms with nothing between them and you.

Kristin, thrifty girl that she is, purchased an annual membership to the zoo. I think it cost her $80 for the family pass, but now she and Jeremy can bring Jocelyn to the zoo as often as they want and save the $32 entrance fee. Because she also got two free quest tickets when she signed up, getting me in for free, she saved $64 off that $80 pass on the very first visit. Seems like a great deal to me.

We called it a day around 1 pm as it was Jocelyn's nap time and the day was getting a bit warm (high 80's). All in all it was a fun first time zoo trip with my granddaughter and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I've always had great memories of zoos. My parents used to take me to the Atlanta zoo when I was small, and Wanda nd I always enjoyed taking our children to the zoo as well. Now, I'm getting to enjoy taking my grandkids to the zoo.

Jeremy had to work Monday and didn't get home until I had to leave for the airport on Tuesday, so I had to say my goodbyes to him that evening. After he went to bed, I went for another short walk and on my way back I stopped in by a place called Tom Ryan's. It was a small hole-in-the-wall country bar, but the staff was friendly and the beer was exceedingly cold. It was nice to be able to sit down, have a cold one, and listen to some music for a little bit. I had a couple of beers, a few pretzels, and then walked back to their place to turn in for the night. I, too, had ot work the next day, so I went to bed pretty early.

On Monday, I had a lunch date with Kristin and Jocelyn at a local park. Kristin had made a friend from an on-line forum for mom's and she was meeting a lady named Kim, her two little boys, and Kim's mom at Espee park and invited me to join them.

The park is quite lovely. Wanda mentioned how nice the Chandler, AZ parks were when she came home from Spring Break, and I have to agree with her. Jocelyn and I had a great time. We chased each other around the park, played on the huge covered play structure, and then Jocelyn had some fun on the water pad.  She really enjoyed the water until the very end when she stepped directly into a large stream of water falling from a fake water tower above her. The unexpected shock of the cold water suprised her and really pissed her off - and when she gets pissed, she has a screech that will clear the wax right from your ears. After that she was done. She just crawled up in mommy's lap and fell asleep.

Unfortunately, that was really the end of my time with her. By the time I got back from work that evening, she was already in the bed, and I had to head back into work the next morning before she awoke. I did get to see her briefly on the ride to the airport the next afternoon, and she sure was cute as she chattered and talked to herself in the backseat on the 20 minute ride, and it was sure nice to get a smile and a kiss from her before I had to fly back to Portland.

After over 10 years of traveling back and forth between Portland and Phoenix, I used to dread traveling, but I sure don't mind now. Too bad there are fewer business reasons for me to travel so much these days, but I'm sure I'll get at least one more trip in before summer.