September 12 @ Deer Tracks Junction

Saturday:  Cal and I arrived at about 10:30 this morning to explore and play at Deer Tracks Junction. When I was purchasing tickets, I found out that with my $75/yr membership, it also came with FOUR free passes. This is the first I ever was told this! So I used one of the four for Cal today and now I have three left! Cool.

Cal has a lot of fun playing here. He is six and although he is not crazy about heights, he does like exploring in all of the tunnels they have built into the playgrounds out here. He wore the head light in all of the tunnels and told me he could see EVERYTHING.

I love this picture of this little guy--this is SO him!

As I watched other children Cal's age, these tunnels were the BEST thing out here. It was difficult to get some of the little kids to even be interested in going to see the animals because these underground tunnels are a total maze of delight!

We visited the prairie dogs, who are always entertaining ...

Cal liked being in their habitat!

This little man is very focused, if he is interested in something, his attention is 100% along with his enthusiasm. I love this.

The EMU, as always, cracked us up. We were feeding them carrots, but I turned my back on them for a second and didn't realize how close I was to their beaks, and they mistook my orange paper admission bracelet for a carrot and practically bit off my arm!!!!! Don't mess with these guys! Sheesh.

Cal got along well with all of the animals in this little area: the pigs, sheep, goats ... he really had a good time feeding them.

He was a very intense machinery driver ... (below)

Cal did make it to the top of a smaller playground set and was super proud about it!

Here he is explaining that we are fresh out of carrots ... these little pigs did not understand and kept following closely ...

Cal continued to try to make himself clear: "WE ARE OUT OF CARROT YOU GUYS!"

We did have some seeds for the birds, so we went to the BUDGIE pavilion next.

Cal loves feeding the birds, who were very interesting today! A few of them were completely determined to get INSIDE of my purse!

One of the young staff boys poured some seeds right into Cal's hands and the birds fed right out of his hands. He was pretty thrilled about that.

Aren't these budgies SO beautiful?

Cal said they tickled his hands, but sometimes they would nip at his fingers too.

"There's a bird on your shoulder, Cal!"

After we fed the budgies, Cal requested to hold the guinea pigs. He is very gentle and careful as he holds them. They make soft little squeaking noises, which I guess means they are happy.

Cal played in the corn for a very long time. It wasn't too crowded today, so he had a lot of space to dig and play.

We went in search of the bears, but only found the Coatimundi, three of them. They are "cousins" to our raccoon up north, but they are from S. America.

There is a stairway to climb if you want to get a bird's eye view of them--so we did that--Gregory insisted.

By this time, it was very near our lunch time and Cal had seen all of the animals he wanted to see. We did shop for awhile in the gift shop and Cal ended up choosing a tiny stuffed fox, super cute, and named him "Tiny Sneaker." He got to go to Culver's with us. See it hiding inside our #37 order sign?

Cal ate his entire cheeseburger and fries and root beer, but announced he was "too full" for his ice cream, so we didn't get any. Cal's not a huge fan of ice cream! 

I sure had a nice time with this little guy on his overnight visit. So thankful I have these little ones to love and play with. 

September 11/12 with Gregory

Friday Night/Saturday morning:  My youngest grandchild was all packed and ready to go when I picked him up at his house, just after he got off his school bus. Actually, it was Dylan who packed extra clothes, a toothbrush, and water bottle and put them into a nice bag for us to take for Greg's overnight.

It's funny how things go when I am one-on-one with a grandchild. As a mom, one-on-one's were not common--because there were THREE sons and one mom. And if it weren't for overnights, I would never have the opportunity to have just ONE grandchild at a time with me. It's a very unique experience! I enjoy it very much because I feel more relaxed and focused when I am listening to only one child speaking at a time. Gregory, for all of his "rough and tumble" ways, is a very serious little soul. He has a LOT of determination, tons of ideas, and a great imagination. 

Here he is showing me the book he made while I was heating up the taco meat for our dinner. It was quite an intricate story--I admit I don't understand much of what was going on it it--lots of battles, etc. But Cal was super pleased with it!

Since it was such a beautiful evening, we took out a basket of paper airplanes and flew them from my driveway into the street. We had many contests, all of which young Mr. Cal claimed he won. (!!)

Cal actually has a very good "throwing arm"--he seems to have a natural athletic ability when it comes to throwing. I noticed this even when he was a tiny kid playing with his miniature basketball hoop!

Cal was flying planes from as high a place as he could find.

See how he follows through with his arm? (below)

He is super pleased with himself!

Gregory challenged me to a game of Chess after we ate our tacos. First of all, I will admit that I am NOT a skilled Chess player. I know the proper moves each piece can make, etc., but I just don't have a very good strategy with the game at all. Our game lasted almost an HOUR until finally, I checkmated this little guy. He captured my Queen within the first few minutes of the game, which took all of the wind completely out of my sails. I hate losing my Queen. 

Cal decided he wanted to watch "Pets I" for his movie choice. We got all of the stuffed pets out: Max, Duke, Snowball, Norm, Chloe, Gidget, etc. It is a fun movie, and we laughed a lot while we watched it. By about 9pm, it was time for bed and Cal didn't fuss about it very much at all. I think 20 minutes later, he was soundly sleeping.

I figured he would be up with the sun the next morning, and promptly at 7am, I heard him call my name outside my bedroom door. We got up and ate some cereal, and then got down to some serious game time. Cal challenged me to a foosball game (not pictured), and we ended up playing quite a few. He loves my tabletop foosball game. He has a habit of making new "rules" all the time -- like 2-point shots, and goals that DON'T COUNT if he wasn't "ready", etc. But mostly, he plays it fairly and enjoys it too.

THEN, we moved on to Battle Box. He cracks me up playing this game. Look at how serious he is!

We also played with a bunch of magnet toys for awhile ... but then it was time to get ready for ...

DEER TRACKS JUNCTION! (see next post).

September 9 Emmy and Erin

Tuesday:  It seems like yesterday that it was LAST Tuesday (which I didn't blog because I didn't take a single photo!) and here it came again already!

I didn't meet any friends for lunch today. Everyone was too tired from the free time they had over the Labor Day weekend. It's funny how that plays out, isn't it?

Since it was a decent weather day, the boys mostly played outside during the time I was there. However, Erin's friend Emmy came inside to play for awhile. These two are so fun to observe--I love their sweet friendship.

Here they are looking at a "Pigeon" book Gregory brought home from school about library books--it was very funny. I am so glad Erin loves to read now.

We played a couple of tic-tac-toe games (with my wolf/fox set) and then switched over to Tetras Tower. The girls had fun with this!

After the game fell over (with both girls denying it was their move that did it), they decided to make buildings out of the blocks. They made some pretty cool buildings--but I forgot to take a picture of them. Sigh.
 

September 6 and 7 Church, Emma, and Grand Haven

Sunday:  We worshiped this morning at Calvary Church and studied about the life of Joseph, the adopted father of our Lord Jesus. It was an interesting study and the worship was wonderful. Emma was with us! After church, Emma came over to my house for a little while. She needed a few card supplies for a wedding card for Chris and Ella, as well as a birthday card for Kota (one week away!). David took the car to Menard's and got a supply list purchased so that we can finish up "the list" tomorrow. 

Emma, David and I did play one game of Pachesi! I love to play this game with Emma, and I was so glad David got to spend time with her too. I can't even remember who won the game. It was probably David!

It was about 4:00 when David and I arrived at Grand Haven. It was super crowded, but we expected that because it was Labor Day weekend. Here is a shot of David flying his kite. He got it really high!

We walked the pier and saw so many beautiful boats. David knows a lot about boats--their size, the power of their engines, the cost, etc. It's so interesting to listen to him.

The "shot" below is of me looking inside the lower lighthouse -- see the portholes on the other side? It was no opened for tours today, so we did not get to go inside. But I HAVE been inside this little lighthouse way back in the winter of 1972!

What a beautiful evening to sit and watch the boats come and go.

When we got back to my house, we continued our Pachesi tournament. I was "down" quite a few games (shock!) and did not recover.

I asked David to play a few songs on my piano. I will say--this was a most treasured time. David plays piano like an angel, a lot of it by memory. So I listened as he played. I pulled up a chair and we sang some beautiful old hymns of the faith together and just worshiped our gracious God together. Such a precious time.

Monday, we (David) finished up my entire "list" of projects around my house. He even installed a screen cover for my eaves trough on my carport! YES! No more growing trees from the seeds that fall into the gutter there anymore! He also finished power washing the house and driveway. 

We had a little bit of time (!) before David had to leave, so we began a NEW Pachesi tournament and since I won SO MANY GAMES, we decided to combine the two tournament wins/losses and play ONE FINAL championship game. I lost. It ended up that for the entire weekend, David won SEVEN games to my SIX. But the games were SO CLOSE!

I was rather "blue" after taking David to the airport by about 3:15 Monday afternoon. Since my red cylinder bird feeder could not be cleaned out, I replaced it with this little blue one. I like it very much.