Friday and Saturday with the grandchildren ...

The final weekend of September ... how can September have passed by so quickly? I feel sad just thinking about it! I love September and hate to see it go! 

I was glad to pick the grandchildren up after school Friday afternoon. Here they are on the porch of The Beach House ...

I spent a few hours (!) at the library Thursday afternoon choosing books that I knew we would enjoy reading together. I had a LOT of help from my niece, Shelley, and her blog www.thebookdiariesblog.com. She gives really helpful book reviews and shares them there ~ books her boys have especially enjoyed and ones she personally appreciates. I made a list of some of her suggestions, and headed on over to the library. I was able to find quite a few really good and fun stories for us to read together! 

The grandchildren, looking through my library basket ...
We read FOUR books as soon as we walked through the door
Friday afternoon!

We are getting used to each other now on Friday evenings and have a "usual" routine of stuff that we enjoy doing. We eat a yummy dinner, read a lot of books, build models, play games, do some art ... and usually end the night watching a movie on the not-so-big screen of my MacBook Pro. By this time, the kids are all in their pj's and snuggled into their sleeping bags on my lighthouse rug in the middle of the main room of The Beach House. We move some of the furniture around and make a nice space for everyone to sleep (ah ... sleep is the final goal of the night!).

The boys spent a lot of time Friday night redesigning their LEGO spaceships. I'm so glad they enjoy building, and I'm so thankful I have a good amount of LEGO's for them to build with! We actually did get to sleep before midnight, and then everyone (more or less) slept in until 8:00 Saturday morning. 

 Saturday morning, we spent a some time outside around my little house. I had just had some work done on it, because the skirting was in bad need of replacement. AND the heating ducts were in terrible shape as well ... no wonder I was so cold last winter! But NOW, everything is repaired and replaced and I feel much better about the impending cold that will soon be upon us.

I showed the kiddos my lawnmower and everyone took a turn mowing my pathetic lawn. I grabbed my camera only at the last minute and caught this picture of Emma. She really enjoyed the lawnmower. We did a little raking and bagging of leaves as well. Emma is a very good assistant! 

Christopher was far more interested in drawing Star Wars characters ... 

And Matthew continued to delight in Origami, folding and making all kinds of interesting stuff! I'm not much help in this regard because I am rather mechanically challenged, although I have improved on that score due to folding paper airplanes ...

Emma and Chris playing a game of
pirates and townsfolk ...

Matthew keeps himself pretty busy with
LEGOS too ...

Christopher, creating some music!

After lunch, it was time for an outdoor adventure. We have an art fair/contest in Grand Rapids called ArtPrize. I think this is year #4, but I'm not positive. I love art and I love this event, but I do NOT like crowds and lines of people, etc. I wanted the children to get a "taste" of ArtPrize, so we ventured downtown and parked near the fish ladder ... 

 I think we enjoyed THIS part of our adventure the best, mostly because the river is so lovely and the fishermen were there catching salmon, the fish were jumping the ladder, the ducks were entertaining, and the children were pretty mesmerized with the entire spectacle. 

Emma and Chris watching the fish!

We walked along the river and underneath bridges until we finally got to Ah-Nab-Awen Park and finally saw some ArtPrize entries there (which I failed to photograph). There were even a few fellows tight-rope walking on a low wire and a higher wire strung between some trees ... it felt like we were at a circus!

The kids were quite taken with the fountains at the Gerald R. Ford Museum. So we hung out there for a little while and enjoyed ourselves ... 

There are a few hills at the park, so the kids climbed to the top and log-rolled down them. I didn't get one single picture that turned out of them rolling down the hills ... 

 But it was fun to see them run and play ...

Christopher always seems to find an
alternate route ... sidewalks are so boring.

 We did manage to see quite a few outdoor ArtPrize entries. I think this one was our favorite. It is titled: "Silk Waves" and it is right IN the Grand River. We met the lady who designed it too! The lines were far too LONG to go inside venues to see other entries ...

I think I wore these guys out Saturday afternoon! We did a lot of walking! We crossed the Grand River via two different bridges and got to hear local musicians (and even small children who were playing instruments on one of the bridges) too. We explored lots of pathways and stairways and boardwalks. I'm so thankful we got to experience a little bit of ArtPrize together this year!