More Saturday stuff ...

Right after lunch on Saturday, we headed outdoors. We had worked hard all morning on our leaf animals, and now it was time for ... hiking and poking around in the woods ... 

While they were waiting for me to get "ready," Emma and Christopher went about beautifying my little yard. I'm glad we still have lots of weeks left when leaves will come down. Emma wants so badly to rake up a "mountain" of leaves. I guaranteed her that there is NO lack of leaves around my place. Her dream will come true, most certainly. 

We drove back over to Townsend Park because those trees were ... waiting for us to come and have a visit with them! They are dressed right now in all their glory, and I think they want to show off a little bit while they are thus arrayed. 

A hiking we will go ... !!

Matthew was blessed to actually see a deer (with antlers even!) before it ran further into the woods. The rest of us missed it completely! 

In case you're wondering what is going on here on this bridge: Emma and Christopher were plunking gobs of leaves into the stream on their side of the bridge (which had a little bit of rapids and rocks) and then rushing over to Matthew's side of the bridge to watch them flow downstream. They did this over and over again ... I think for more than 30 minutes! They were quite enthusiastic about it the entire time. 

 Then they all found sticks and began to poke around in the stream, using the sticks to break up little dams of leaves and rocks that were blocking the flow. I loved watching their interaction and fascination with this beautiful place.

The two pictures above demonstrate something significant: Notice Emma's grip on Christopher's shirt. She is NOT going to let her brother fall into the creek. Chris didn't even seem to notice that she had his shirt in her hands. I think he is used to her "mothering." They finally tired of the bridge, so we walked further around in the park to one of my favorite little places ...

I'm hoping, with all of my heart, that heaven is a lot like this place: clean crisp air, stunning beauty, quiet and unbelievable peace ... having the grandchildren to share this with is the buttercream frosting on the double-chocolate fudge cake ... here and for eternity too.

Later in the afternoon, we did go back over to Dwight Lidell Park. We brought our football, kick ball, and soccer ball. By that time, I didn't have energy for many more pictures.

Chris throws a pretty mean pass ...

After all of our playing was finished, we met Nana and shared some fast food at the Wendy's over by her house. It was good for everyone to see each other again (no pictures)! I think the grandchildren and I made some pretty nice memories this past weekend ... and I'm deeply thankful for all of them.