Samantha back in Roseville if just for a day and night.

Of course, you can see that Samantha is sort of number one when she comes to visit. Yes, Michael and Jennifer were along for the ride. I was hoping to have my staff meet Samantha as they all saw her as an infant, but Diane didn't get them over to my office until almost 5:30 PM on Monday and most of the staff had already gone home. We ended up taking them to John's Incredible Pizza in Roseville. It is a Chuck E. Cheese style restaurant, but it is like Chuck E. Cheese on steroids. The place has midway style games and rides with bumper cars (Sam was too small), a tea cup style ride, but with more oomph (Sam was too small), a plummet drop ride (Sam was too small) and a mini roller coaster (Sam could ride with an adult). Most three year olds could go on the ride, but you had to be 44 inches tall and Sam doesn't make the grade. They had a buffet with pizza, pasta, a salad bar and a big dessert bar with cobblers, cinnamon buns, ice cream, donuts and pastries. We sat in the Toon room and watched cartoons while we ate and then Sam talked me into taking her over to the midway. The facility is in a former Sam's retail warehouse, so it is HUGE. I took Sam on the Frog ride, we did a jump rope game, the merry-go-round and I took her to the kiddee area with slides and a climbing tower. Jennifer and Darla met me there and they went on the roller coaster. By the way, take a look at Darla's black and white outfit. I'm married to quite the cougar, eh? No wonder I'm trying to color my hair.
We ended up there for about two hours and Samantha collected a grand total of 241 tickets. We were able to exchange those points for a ping pong game that throws the ball up in the air and you try to catch it in the basket. Sam no sooner got the game than she pointed it at her face and shot the ball into her forehead. She was walking out of the venue and shooting the ball up in the air and Jennifer was chasing it all over the place. We got into my car and Samantha managed to crush the ball. I didn't realize that and when I asked Sam where her toy was when we got home, she said it broke. I asked her who broke it and she said, "Samantha".
We had birthday cake and she opened her gifts when we got home and then watched "Toy Story 3" on video. Sam spent most of the movie letting us know that she didn't want to watch "Toy Story 3". We had rented that video and bought her "Sinbad" for her birthday. She wanted to watch Sinbad. I finally took the package and told her that it said "Sinbad" was to be watched in the morning only. That seemed to satisfy her.
I put her down and she asked me to lie down with her. I told her I would stay with her if she
promised to go to sleep. She had trouble and so I started pretending to be asleep and snoring a little bit. Sam then started pretending to snore too, which cracked me up. We were in giggling and laughing when Darla and Jennifer came in and I was in trouble for keeping her awake.

She woke me up this morning by coming in to my room when Darla was showering and telling me it was morning and she wanted to watch "Sinbad". The girl is smart. I took everyone out to breakfast this morning and Sam was fussy after a late night. Again, everyone frowned at me. She was crying and putting up a fuss when we got to the restaurant, but settled down as soon as she saw the big boxes full of toys at the front of the restaurant for the kids. She picked out a toy and brought it to the table and then was mesmerized by the miniature train that runs throughout the restaurant up at the top of the wall near the ceiling. It was a perfect place to bring a fussy granddaughter for breakfast.

We stopped at the store on the way home and bought some replacement balls for the ping pong game. The ball was smaller than a regulation ping pong, so Darla thought to buy some fishing bobbers that were the right size. When we brought it to the car, Sam said, "These aren't balls, these are for fishing." It turns out John has taken her fishing before. Sam and I got dropped off at the park on the way home and we met up with another family with two girls 2 and 4 and Sam made some fast friends. She wanted to ride the 4 year old's bike with training wheels, but I told her, "No, you didn't have a bike helmet." We played for a while and I pushed her on the swings and then she went to play with the two little girls. I was relaxing enjoying the sun and when I looked up she had the little girl's helmet on and was getting on the bike. She is a little schemer. She had also asked for more cake and when her Mom told her that it was too late, she went into the dark kitchen and brought over a step stool and climbed up to the counter by the cake. When I laughed later about it, Darla said, "Ken, she is totally Jennifer!" True that, eh?

Some really good news came as the kids were visiting and that is that Jennifer got a job. She will be working for a Tech Temp company that provides temporary workers for companies looking for electrical and fiber optics work. The first job is a 19 month contract. Jennifer found this out on the same day that she found out her worker's compensation benefits were due to run out. Even better news was that when Michael was giving a verbal recommendation for Jennifer, the recruiter asked him to join the team as well and he will meet with the guy tomorrow at 10 AM. Jennifer will meet with him at 11:30 and has a training tomorrow at 2 PM. The only "fly in the ointment" is child care, but Jennifer was working on that when she left. John is out of the country in Bermuda on a job until next Friday. Pray for them that this all works out. Sam will have an adjustment as she's had Jennifer to herself for the last year.

Well, Darla is waiting in the living room and I have to go spend time with my cougar. I hope all are well and I'll write more this weekend. Ciao.