What A Weekend!!!

Weeks and weeks ago, I received a message from my niece saying that she wanted to come in to visit and surprise Grandma (my mom) for her birthday.  Of course I said that I would help her to pull off this surprise.  She flew in to Pittsburgh on Thursday morning, so I dropped Bobby off at school on Thursday and drove straight to the airport to pick up the big birthday surprise.  Please don't tell Bobby that he missed an opportunity to run around the luggage carousels!!!

Earlier in the week I asked my mom to an early birthday lunch, because this seemed the perfect way to pull off "Operation Surprise Grandma."  She said yes that she would love to go to lunch.  I told her that I had "a meeting" earlier that morning and that I would meet her at the restaurant at noon.  

Thankfully, everything worked as planned.  My mom's sister, Mimi, also came along for the birthday lunch.  I fibbed and told my mom that my friend Noelle wanted to come along too and to please get a table for four.  Mom and Mimi were already seated when I arrived and perfectly my mom's back was facing out into the restaurant so she wouldn't see the surprise before she was supposed to.  I sat down and got out my phone acting like I was doing something, but oddly enough I was holding it up in the air....I wanted to videotape the arrival.  My mom's expression was priceless, you could tell that she was 100% surprised!!!! (I will keep trying to upload the video, but right now it won't let me.)

  You couldn't get the big smile off of Grandma's face!!!  After lunch the girls went home and I picked up Bobby from school.  Later that evening I took Bobby to Grandma's so that he could see his cousin.

On Friday, again please don't tell Bobby that we had more fun without him, we went out for another fun lunch.  The girls experienced their first Primanti Bros. sandwich.  

Is she going to be able to eat this huge thing?????!!!!!???  You just have to give it a big smush down.

 Ashley's sandwich is larger than her head!!!

Bob won't have any problem with his sandwich, he's an experienced pro!!  Striking a pose to show off!

I wimped out and got a hamburger.....

Still huge, you just can't go wrong at Primanti's.

Don't feel too bad for Bobby that he missed out on the fun.  He had his last day of swimming at school.  Given the opportunity, he would choose swimming over sitting in a restaurant anyday.

He was up and ready for school in his swim trunks almost an hour before time to leave for school. Wow, what a long morning.  The day even got better for Mr. Bobby, after school he had Tiny Tykes tumbling at the gymnastics center!!

The girls came to our house on Saturday, which was Grandma's actually birthday.  I took Bobby with me to the grocery store in the morning to help pick out the candles for Grandma's birthday cake. He impressed me with the amount of time that he spent looking at the candles and he even picked out some blue cookie icing, which I never actually used on the cake, and last but not least he searched through the sprinkles until he found the perfect one for his grandmother.

We came home and baked a cake for Grandma complete with blue/green sprinkles and the swirly candles that he finally picked out.

We had a cookout for dinner....hotdogs, hamburgers, corn on the cob.  After dinner, we got to eat Grandma's cake.  But first, she had to blow out her birthday candles.  Thankfully she had some help!!

What's a birthday party without presents??!!!???

 Currently, Grandma's favorite colors are blues and greens.  She calls them her "signature colors" so her gifts reflected her signature!!  Bracelets, glasses and candles all to match her shirt!!

While the girls weren't with us, they went to see two different movies, played games, watched tv....basically, just spent some quality time together.

Sunday finally came and Ashley was scheduled to fly home later in the day.  However, since we had her for a few more hours, we all went to the Wharf District Rail Trail and participated in an autism walk to support some of Bobby's peers and socialize with many of our autism friends.  Let me tell you something......there could not have been a more perfect weather day for this walk.  It was perfect! Not too hot and not too cold, especially when you have a group of kids who have sensitivities to these issues.  Perfect, perfect, perfect!!!

 Bobby and Natalie

Bobby, me, Noelle and Natalie 

 Bobby, me and Ashley

 Grandma, Ashley and Bobby

 Bobby and Natalie looking out at the amphitheater entertainment. 

 Bobby!!

Bobby saw Mr. Mike (his occupational therapist for YEARS) sitting in the bleachers and went over to him and took off his visor and sunglasses.  After all, Mr. Mike never wore these items when he saw him in the therapy room and I guess it just didn't look like him while he was wearing these items.  This happened a couple of more times and finally Mike put the visor onto Bobby's head.  Low and behold, Bobby wore the visor for half of the walk..... 

until someone walking behind us said, he threw his hat down!!  We gave the visor back to Mr. Mike and all was right in the world again. 

Ashley and Bobby

 Bobby veered over into the grass so that he could make it to the playground with no foot traffic.

Time to play.

 We finally made it make to the end of the walk and Bobby sat down and had a little hydration before we headed home.

Sadly it was time to head back to Pittsburgh International Airport and drop off Ashley so that she could return home and get back to work on Monday morning.  By the way, when did she grow up, graduate from college and get a job???  I still picture her and her beautiful sister running down the stairs on Christmas morning to see what Santa had brought.  Sniff sniff.

Good bye sweet girl!!  We will miss you!!  We all had a great weekend!!

Bobby relaxed with his good friend Elmo to wind down from all of the weekend fun.