Best. Hotel. Ever.

For the past few years, Jeremy's grandmother, Nana Roberts, has been off and on with immunosuppressing medications to treat her rheumatoid arthritis.  Having a weakened immune system and being around small children are definitely a terrible combination and so we have been giving her house a wide berth when anyone had the least little sniffle... which was most of the time.

This visit, though, Nana was in good health and great spirits and able to host us for the first time since Sydney was younger than her brother is now.

It was wonderful.

I had to give all the lead in about Nana's ailments because I left her house after a week going, "Why, oh why, oh why, have we ever stayed in a hotel?  Why would we pay money for cramped quarters and a mini-fridge to store gas station groceries when this palace was available?  Why?"  Oh, yeah, it came to me, we were germy and Nana was basically on chemo there for a while.

So, yes, we loved staying at Nana's house.  But we loved having Nana around to stay with far more.  So that's why we haven't stayed there in a while.

Jeremy took advantage of having the run of Nana's kitchen and cooked most of the nights we were there.  I think Nana felt a little spoiled.  I know I spent a good part of the visit affirming for Nana and Gram that, yes, yes I know what a lucky lady I am!

 I think Gram's favorite part of the visit was cooking with her son.  She and Jeremy had such a good time.

I know the whole family enjoyed the hanging out in the kitchen while Jeremy just took care of things.  And Jeremy loved sharing his cooking skill with the family.

We really did spend some time at Nana's on Thanksgiving day, but we were all so tired and overfull that it wasn't our favorite part of the visit.  What we did love was that not even counting the coffee and dessert Thanksgiving "meal," we had three full dinners at Nana's house with at least Rachel and her kids and Gram, if not also with Uncle Jon and Uncle Dale and Aunt Gerri's family.  It was like a week long Thanksgiving.  nana kept saying how nice it was to have almost a full week of delicious homemade food.  But that's where I refer back to my point about knowing how lucky I am... I get this food every week!

After our evening meals, the kids would play with whatever adults were around that evening.  Sydney got some really nice quality Aunt Gerri time this visit.

The kids loved sitting with Nana in her chair and watching TV with her.  Sydney and John both would drag toys out of the spare room, the "toy room" into the living room to be closer to Nana.

We already have hotel plans for Christmas -- there was a deal on staying at the Moody Gardens hotel and passes to go to Moody Gardens.  But I swear if that deal had come up after Thanksgiving we would have turned it down.

No hotel is as nice as staying with Nana.