The nicest of days ...

We had such a great day Thursday. I have so many pictures to show you! We started our morning at The Lena Meijer Children's Garden ~ what a great place to play and to learn! My mom used to volunteer at Meijer Gardens (before Grandpa Roy came into her life and swept her off her feet) and years ago she gave me a gift of a children's CD of songs from here. The very first song talks about the little gate that children go through to get to the special garden ...
I used to have three copies of this little children's CD. I kept one in my car so that the kids and I could listen to it to and from picking them up at their house. And then I gave one to the kids to keep the last time I was in Texas. And then I thought I had one here in the house, but I can't find it anywhere! Emma recognized the little gate right away and was so delighted! I managed to squeeze myself through the gate as well (thankfully, no one was taking any pictures of that).
There is a wonderful play place of the Great Lakes, very accurately modeled, where children can play with all kinds of little boats and take them through the Soo Locks and everything!

Of course, the children get rather wet in the process ~ but it was a very warm morning and it felt refreshing. There is a huge garden area with tree houses, bird houses ~

where you can pretend to sit on your very own egg (rather large eggs to have laid ... poor bird!) ~ and by the way, the children are pretty tired of posing for pictures (as you can see) ... and there is a nice old Log House where you can play inside ~ some nice games that children used to play a long time ago ...Emma challenged me to a game of checkers ... this was her very first try at this game, and she did really well! She especially liked the part where you could get "crowned" and be a very dangerous piece on the board, being able to move frontwards AND backwards! Watch out!
This is the face of victory! Don't tell her, but I let her win ~ she was so pleased!
Christopher challenged me next, but there were just a few too many rules in this game for Chris to completely understand yet, so we just jumped our guys around the board a little bit until he grew tired and saw something else that caught his eye!
This is a cute peg board with little wooden objects that you could start at the top and see if they would bounce their way to the bottom. Matthew was very fond of playing with this.

There is an enormous sand area, but it was closed off with danger signs ... thankfully, this raised sand box was accessible for the kids to play in.
We visited a beaver lodge, very nicely done, that you had to crawl to get inside of ...
complete with beaver puppets to play with! There was also a cool squirrel house in the base of a tree that the kids could go inside of and play ... but my pictures there are really bad.
This is just a really fun place to take kids!

If I had grandchildren that lived here in town, I would have to just buy a family membership deal so that we could go here whenever we wanted!
This is my pathetic picture of the children in front of some gorgeous flowers that are EVERYWHERE here ... like I said, the kids are really really tired of posing for pictures.
We brought a picnic lunch and ate a good meal outside together. We fed our leftover crackers to some little birds who had been watching our picnic and waiting for their turn ... and then, you would think that would have been enough fun for one day, but NO! We were invited somewhere else!

Karen's Magical Place! We took a 10-minute drive over to Karen's house. These pictures do not do it justice. It is just a superbly beautiful 97-year-old home that reminds me of a mini-Grand Hotel (if anything about this place could be said to be "mini"). Everything about it is lovely.
This is their backyard and pool ...
And what a great swing! Big enough for 3 or 4 children, under the shade of a giant and most beautiful tree!

On the side of their property, there is a tree house, with the sweetest cement pond nearby ...
and a great sandbox underneath! Remember this, Sabrina? Years ago, Sabrina used to take care of a few of Karen's children right here!
We all enjoyed the pool together ... I had hoped more of my pictures would have turned out ... but I really like this one of Di and Emma!

I have to say a few more things about Karen. I have known her now since Jesse was two day's old. I have never seen her even a little bit annoyed with a child ~ not hers, not mine, not even a total stranger. She is beautiful, like you would imagine an Arabian princess to be! But better than that ~ when you are with her, you forget about all of the sad things, all of the heartaches ... AND she is so full of encouragement and kind words ... she is better than the sweetest Southern ice tea on the hottest of days! And it's been that way since I have known her, when she lived in a little tiny apartment with not very much extra of anything!

I told Nana and Roy that we would be back home close to 4:00 in the afternoon. They hadn't seen the children yet and were anxious to visit with them for a little bit. So we reluctantly left Karen's and came on home.
Nana played trains with us for a little while! She loves these little toys almost as much as I do!
It was fun to see her get down on the floor and play for a little while ...
We tried to get everyone in this picture, but it just wasn't going to happen ... the boys have really had it with cameras in general! They took one look at us trying to pose this picture and ran for their lives! So the next day (yesterday, Friday) I put my camera away. I didn't take one single picture the whole entire day! We really just did re-run activities anyway. We are all of us beyond exhausted! When I returned the children over to the Hands' house at 3:00 yesterday, I came home and fell asleep on the lounge chair in the family room, woke up, and then it seemed that anywhere I sat down I was sleeping again!