Young Mr. Jones Comes to Town

By now, I'm sure you are all aware that Nathan Paul is staying in Grand Rapids the next few weeks with the McNeil's (Rachel's parents -- Nathan's grandparents!). Rachel isn't feeling well, and her doctors would like baby Nia to wait a little while longer before being born. So, Nicolas and Nathan took a flight from Houston to Chicago Saturday night. The McNeil's met them in Chicago, they hung out for a little while so that Nathan could transition more smoothly, and then Nicolas waited for his morning flight back to Houston while David and Carol drove to Grand Rapids with the young Mr. Jones. However, the McNeil's had a prior engagement Sunday afternoon and we (the eldest Mr. Jones and I) were asked if we would enjoy a visit with Nathan. YES, WE WOULD!

So at around noon, Nathan and the McNeil's arrived here at The Jones Junction. Poor Nathan! He was still a little bit tired, he had been with his grandparents for a little while, and NOW he was being brought to his OTHER grandparents -- YIKES!! But what a trooper he was! Boppa was holding Nathan as the McNeil's walked out of our family room -- he cried as soon as he heard Carol say, "Shall we get going?" So I built a very quick block tower and huffed and puffed and BLEW the tower down (and fell over in a heap myself, along with the tower)! I know I'm not as entertaining as Nicolas, but I made a good effort ... and within a very few minutes, Nathan stopped crying, crawled off the lap of Grandpa Jones and started playing.

These are the block towers I was making ...
Young Mr. Jones came clutching this adorable bear
Isn't it about the cutest stuffed bear ever?
But bear soon was discarded for other toys ...
we do have a heap of toys here at The Jones Junction.
Here is Nathan checking out the train table
He really enjoyed the magnets opposing and attracting each other

Nathan was content to just run the trains

and see how everything worked

In the left-hand corner of the train table

is a little painted pond.

We have a toy turtle who lives there

(who did not come with the set and doesn't even

come close to matching the rest of the stuff)

Nathan picked up the turtle and said,

"Tur-tur."

And then he felt the pond to see if it was wet!

Nathan really liked the roundhouse --

(Didn't you purchase that for us, Nicolas?)

He spent a lot of time opening all the doors

and putting each engine in and out.

However, Nathan's main attraction

was Thomas-K

Don't worry! We watched them very closely.

Thomas was in the house when Nathan

first arrived, but then we let Thomas out.

Nathan really wanted to go outside and find the "mow."

So Boppa took Nathan out in the yard.

Look at Grandpa's Zinnia's! They are taller than Nathan!

We showed Nathan all of the pretty colors

and then we went hunting for Thomas-K

THERE HE IS! Nathan was SO delighted!

And Thomas was very well behaved!

It was really too hot to stay outside for very long

so we went back to playing in the family room

Nathan played very seriously

and kept going back to the roundhouse as his favorite toy

He was also fascinated with the Zube Tube

(I found this up in Nick's closet a year or so ago --

it used to belong to him!)

It makes a cool wiggly vibrating echoey kind of sound!

We also played a little bit of ball ...

But then it was right back to the roundhouse

See Nathan's shoes?

He thought we should try them on OUR bear

And then Grandpa and I tucked bear in

for a nap on the couch ...

we were hoping our very tired grandson would want to take a nap too!

But he never did -- and that was OK too

He acted like he was tired, he looked tired,

he was rubbing his eyes -- but he did not sleep

We showed him our musical instruments in the

living room and put on one of our

children's CD's with all of the Bible songs

Nathan liked playing all of the instruments

and young Mr. Jones made his very own

karaoke microphone out of one of our percussion

instruments and did a little song of his own ...

We went back to the family room and played

a little bit of hide-n-seek around the couch

He thought it was really funny if I would sneak

around the back of the couch and then pop up to scare him ...

In between all of this playtime,

we did manage to convince Nathan to eat a bite of two of cheese

drink some orange juice,

eat a couple of chips,

try some yogurt

but he just did not seem to be hungry.

He really didn't even eat much more than half a cookie.

But then Grandpa Jones got out the ice cream.

YUM!

By then it was almost 5:30 and Nathan picked up

his bear, and announced that he was leaving!

"Gotta go," he said.

And he really looked ready to drop over!

Thankfully, five minutes later, the McNeil's returned!

We had a nice visit with you, Nathan!

What a nice boy you are!

Please come visit us again soon!