A few fun hours with Rachel and the kiddos ...

We had such a fun couple of hours with Rachel and the grandchildren today. I'm supposed to be retiring to be early tonight in anticipation of a BIG weekend ... but if I don't post these pictures tonight, it will be days until I have another chance!

I had Grandpa Jones buy a nice bunch of carrots yesterday so that the kiddos could feed my friend, Tuffy, who lives just up the road from us, at the top of the hill. It was a nice walk for us this morning.
Nia wasn't too sure about being this close to Tuffy. When we had talked to her about going to see him, I think she pictured a much smaller horse!
Nathan was just fine with Tuffy ... but he is always good with animals.
Rachel is showing Nathan how to hold his hand flat with the carrot so that Tuffy could eat the carrot and not his fingers ...
Do you like Lottie's RED outfit? All the way down to her adorable flip-flops? She was just RED all over!
Mr. Lyle led Rachel around the yard on Tuffy, and then he lifted Nathan up for a ride with his mommy ...
I love these pictures of them!
Mr. Lyle is such a nice fellow. He and his wife will be married 57 years this Sunday!
I asked the ever-stylish and oh-so-fashion-conscious Grandpa Jones to PLEASE remove his ridiculous hat so that I could take some nice pictures with he and baby Liam ... so he transferred over his hat ... poor Liam!
Rachel is amazing around animals of all kinds. She has such a gentle spirit to her and I think animals pick right up on that. This being good with animals thing kind of runs in our family (minus ME, of course).
We walked back home and hung around our place and just ... played! I loved watching Nia's expressions as she tried different marbles down various pathways ... she was always surprised WHERE each marble ended up!
And here is Nathan telling me that my flash is "damaging his eyes" because of how bright it is!
We played outside with our water toys. Do you see our little friend "Catty" the caterpillar on top of the blue tugboat? The caterpillar was crawling up my leg, so we put her in the wading pool inside the tugboat. She managed to crawl up to the top. When she got there, Nathan yelled out: "I'm the king of the world!" pretending either that he was the caterpillar, or the caterpillar was on the Titanic!
Here is Lottie in her cute little swimming suit. She did NOT get into the pool, but she sat and watched all of us play, very mellow-like ... with very huge yawns ...
Isn't she just beautiful?
And Nia really had a good time just exploring everything there is to do with water on such a gloriously HOT and sunny day in Michigan!
Nathan, naturally, was not content to stay with both feet on God's good earth ... he is SO fast at climbing and he has ... perfect balance!

Well ... it is past my bed time (!) and I really haven't done a very good job narrating our day. I hope you could catch by the pictures that we really enjoyed our time with these beautiful little grandchildren today ... and Rachel too!