May 25 Memorial Day Parade

Monday:  I drove downtown to watch the Memorial Day Parade and arrived at about 9:15. I parked my pretty red Honda in the back parking lot at Acton Institute, after calling Dylan to ask him if it was okay. It's nice and close to Veteran's Memorial Park in Grand Rapids--right across the street on Fulton--so it was a perfect and very free place to park! 

"Ruby" parked behind Acton Institute

I walked around for awhile prior to the 10am parade beginning. Emma and I had talked yesterday about possibly seeing each other down here. Emma's friend Melanie is in the Guard, and it was possible she might march in the parade this morning--it turned out, however, that she declined and I guess most of her group also did because there wasn't a single "Guard" troop that I saw today in the parade.

Jesse was in charge of most of the coordination of the parade. He has done this for years. It is a very frustrating responsibility ... kind of like being the "designated felon" for a business group that doesn't run very well. It seems that every year absolutely NO ONE assists on the planning of this event. And the City of Grand Rapids is also very lax in its participation and planning--everything being very last-minute and critical towards Jesse, when he has done all that he can do with nobody responding to his emails and enquiries, etc. BUT ... here is Jesse consulting with other vets as to some of the details of the set-up. See him?

I love to watch Jesse when he is in charge of an event like this. He takes his role very seriously, and gets the job done. He doesn't naturally "like" people (this is often noted in bold print on many of the T-shirts he wears), but I think he actually does very well when he converses with people. I find that he is polite, professional and very kind. What more can you possibly ask of a person?!?!?

When Jesse arrived at about 8am today he found many homeless people occupying the "park" where the speaking and main event was to occur. Eventually, the GRPD encouraged those people to move elsewhere--and it is very sad that we have homeless people in our city ... but this "park" is not generally well maintained: the American flag is faded and the pulleys on it are broken--apparently the flag is officially to be flown at half mast until noon on Memorial Day ... but this was not taken care of for today's event. 

I was very happy to connect with Emma with spare time before the parade began. She was able to find a close enough parking place too. We each had brought chairs to sit in to watch the parade. Emma hardly sat down, however, because she was busy filming. There was one year when I was downtown, I think with Kaity, for the parade and I took very careful pictures of every group marching, bands playing, bikes riding, etc., as well as all of the speakers too. But today, I just needed to snap a few pictures to remember the day. Besides, I always get all the names of the speakers mixed up because I don't write them down!

Emma does very well with the camera she purchased many years ago. She has a really nice lens that she can use for zooming close up and it gives her a nice quality picture.

Emma and I stayed and listened to the prayers (which were offered in the wonderful name of Jesus Christ), the men who received honors (like "Kent County Veteran of the Year") and spoke to the crowd, etc. The national anthem was sung acapella quite nicely by a young woman. The crowd was made up mostly of families, which was nice to see--people bringing their little kids down here to watch our country and military folk be honored. People were very well behaved, for which I was thankful.

Here's Jesse "tearing down" all of his equipment after the ceremony was finished. He spoke with many veterans throughout the morning--many approaching him and telling him that they appreciated all he did for the event and for the veterans in Kent County. Jesse has been pretty discouraged about the entire veterans organization here--due to the lack of people willing to get on their feet and actually contribute something to their fellow vets. I am very pleased to be the mother of THIS veteran and so thankful that he came home alive from Iraq after his deployment there in 2007-2008. I love him so much.

And dear Emma. What a JOY to be with her today. I can't even find adequate words to explain the deep connection I feel with her, and I am immensely thankful to be her grandma.

Thank you, Heavenly Father, for being such a good Father to us. My heart is very full of His love today. 

May 22-23 Brendan's sleepover

Friday Night:  It was Brendan's sleepover turn this weekend! I'm so glad he still wants to come over and have a one-on-one with me. 

I didn't really take any pictures Friday night because we were "busy" reading Charlie Brown books (and cracking up), enjoying hot dogs and Raemon noodles, a huge ice cream cone, playing the game of "LIFE", and then settling down to watch "My Neighbor Totoro". I just simply forgot to take a single picture during all of this. 

Brendan really gets a kick out of Charlie Brown comics. I do too. They are so well written, and the illustrations are hilarious. I love to laugh with the grandkids as we read them. Some of the humor is very subtle, but Brendan seems to pick up on it and some how understand how hilarious it is. 

I have never played the game of "LIFE" with Brendan ... actually, none of these four grandchildren have played it with me. It's kind of a fun game for a certain age group. Brendan enjoys video games that take you on a life journey. This isn't a video game, but it has very fun aspects to it. I was glad to play it with Brendan. He won! He had double the $$ I had at the end of the game. He had one pet and two children, and he was an actor as his vocation. Oh--he also had TWO houses. My salary was half of his, because I was a nonprofessional in my job, I owned zero houses, had one child, and I think I had some kind of an odd pet.

Saturday at

DEER TRACKS JUNCTION (DTJ)

I was really hoping to take Brendan to Deer Tracks Junction Saturday morning. For awhile, it looked like we might get rained out; but it actually rained all night long and pretty much got it out of its system by the time we drove over to the park. I took many pictures, but I'll just post my favorites.

DTJ had kangaroos last year, but their enclosure wasn't quite finished and it was difficult to get close to them. They had the whole thing finished this year and we got to get super close to, and even touch the kangaroos. This one's name is SHEILA. Her fur is super soft, but the hair is short and close to its body--so it doesn't feel as soft as a rabbit. I counted about seven kangaroos. It was very fun to watch them hop around.

I believe the worker told us that the males are RED and the females are gray. See the little red one? We were told that this one is about six months old.

I think the pavilion that brings the most laughter is the Budgie place. We had so much fun with the budgies. I had purchased three food sticks, and we hadn't stepped more then TWO steps past the chain doors when we were practically attacked (!!) by a dozen budgies.

I absolutely LOVE to watch Brendan with the budgies. His delight is so precious. He is kind and careful and very patient with little animals. Look at his sweet face as he interacts with them.

The plastic/paper cup that held the feed sticks were quite a draw for these birds--they went right INSIDE the cup! See the tail sticking out on the picture below? Occasionally, I had THREE birds head first in the cup trying to get the seeds that had fallen off the stick. It was so funny to listen to the birds bickering about whose turn it was to go down deep into the cup.

I handed off the cup to Brendan so that I could hold my phone with two hands for taking pictures. He had such a blast with these birds.

It made both of us miss our dear Matey-Bird very much.

At one point, both of Brendan's shoes were covered with budgies chewing on his laces. Brendan couldn't BUDGE! ha!

We finally ran out of bird seed, so we reluctantly moved on, walking toward the area where the little pigs are kept. On the way, we fed a few very aggressive goats. I thought this one was going to squeeze his way right through that tiny opening to get our food! We calmed him down with a few carrots.

Here's a few pictures of Brendan feeding the little pigs. They have a very "proper" name, but I didn't write any of that information down so I'm just going to refer to them as PIGS.

Aren't they so cute?

And LOOK at this turkey! I don't think I've ever seen a real turkey (that wasn't cooked) this close up. The detail on its feathers and head/neck area are so amazing. He was gobbling up a storm!

Brendan spent a L O N G time climbing high on these playgrounds as well as crawling through tunnels. I have at least three small flashlights at home and one cool thing that you can put around your head that has a light on it--but do you think I remembered to bring them? Brendan wasn't a bit bugged by this and had a very good time exploring anyway.

See Brendan way up high on the top? Believe it or not (!!!!!) about eight years ago I could climb all the way up to the top too. I used to love to go up there with my camera and just take pictures of the entire park. I love heights. But now that I have somehow gotten "old" and my knees hurt when I climb steps, I don't climb very high any more. It's tough getting old!

Look at the baby camels with their spindly legs!

I forget how old these guys are, and it's difficult to judge their size because there are no adult camels around to compare them with. I tried to feed them carrots, but they weren't interested in them at all.

Brendan was trying to get this tube to spin; however, it's a struggle! One of the park workers came along and gave it a helpful shove, but Brendan fell down inside here when that happened and I think he was reminded how he fell on his arm the other day while skateboarding. He got out of the tube and didn't return to try it again.

We fed the Llamas! We could have gone inside their enclosure because they make a pathway and have an easy opening gate ... but in recent days, we have seen short "reels" of llamas spitting on people ... so we stayed outside the fence. None of these guys looked like the spitting type, but you never know.

We only stayed a few minutes at the guinea pig place. We walked down to see the bears, but they were all too far away to really enjoy, so we walked over to visit the Prairie Dogs.

The enclosure for the prairie dogs is very cool. They added this climbing apparatus for the prairies this year. It was cute to watch them climb it and maneuver around on the top of the roof.

I had a few carrots leftover, so I threw them to the prairie dogs. I was surprised, but they picked them up and ate them like we eat corn on the cob.

We had basically been to each area of the park when we decided that we would buy a few more bird seed sticks and re-visit the budgies ... because why not?

I was super thankful that we spent almost three hours here today without being rained on. Sure, it was gray and cloudy, but the possibility of impending rain kept the visitors to a minimum today. Did I mention how much I love this place? The workers here are mostly high school kids. They keep the place super clean, and they know a lot about the animals. They are friendly and approachable, and it makes the time here very satisfying. There was a very knowledgeable woman worker walking around--we bumped into her several times--I wonder if she isn't one of the owners--but I told her that coming out to Deer Tracks was a "little taste of heaven"! She remarked that this was the best comment she'd ever heard about the park! What I meant by my remark is that it's just so wholesome to see children running and playing, laughing with delight, exploring and enjoying sweet little animals. I think heaven will have all of these great pleasures for us to enjoy ... without end!

I snapped one quick picture of Brendan enjoying his ice cream at Culver's. He got the "flavor of the day" which was some super chocolate volcano kind of concoction. I stuck with the plain chocolate, which by the way, was DELICIOUS.

What a great sleepover, Brendan! I am so thankful to be your grandma.