Visiting Grandma Ellinger On April 17, 2009

Over Spring Break, Jake and I decided to go and visit Grandma Ellinger in Sacramento. It was a LONG car ride, but I'm grateful for the car dvd player. I'm not sure what Elisabeth sees in the movie "Bolt", but it kept her pretty occupied. We made a ton of potty stops on the way and even Ellie decided she'd rather hold it then have to stop at the side of the road to use the bathroom.

On Friday morning we went to see Grandma. It was so good to see her! She loved looking at the kid's scrapbook pages and hearing all about our adventures with Nathan. She asked lots of questions and was in such a happy mood.

The best part of the morning visit with her was that she was able to hold Nathan. He LOVED sitting on her lap and when he was given his favorite BYU blankie, he held it and fell asleep on Grandma's lap. I think she really enjoyed holding a baby and she was thrilled that Nathan was comfortable with her enough to fall asleep on her. That made our trip! We really wanted Grandma to meet Nathan and he was so sweet that morning with her.

Its easy to tell that Grandma is slowing down and that she isn't able to walk or function for herself. She does have some dementia, but she has a good long term memory. She remembered that we hadn't been there to see her in 3 year. (What can I say, its been a BUSY three years for us!) We spent the last 3 years helping mom when she was sick, going to graduate school, Jake getting his bachelor's degree, dealing with Mom's passing, buying her home, having Nathan... and then spending 15 months of surgeries, hospital stays, numerous doctor appointments... I think she understood but we should have been better.

We spent an hour and a half that morning with her and then went back for dinner that evening. The kids had a harder time in the evening as they were both extremely tired. We took Grandma for a walk around the grounds and then took her back to her room. She asked so many questions about Nathan's health and was truly concerned about him. She laughed at the jokes and loved hearing about the time that Ellie peed on the grass after getting her bike last summer. She truly loved being around and seeing her great grandchildren. We also went back for an hour on Saturday evening and left Elisabeth with Erin at the hotel. Both Jake and I wish that Grandma were closer. It was hard to visit her and have to leave her behind. I'm not even her blood grandchild and I was in tears for having to leave her.

Maybe it was because we watched mom pass away for a year, but it wasn't that weird or hard to be around Grandma. Elisabeth did well around her for the most part too. I'm not sure what our vacations will look like for the summer, but I'd like to go back again for a visit.