May 31 Birthday Lunch with Dylan

Wednesday: Today is NOT Dylan's birthday, but since his actual birthday was Sunday and he already had a full day planned (all Sunday's are busy days at Dylan's house), and since Miss Jen is away on her honeymoon and I've had a slightly more demanding schedule with the kiddos, we decided Wednesday would be a good day to have his birthday lunch.

I never know much about downtown restaurants, but Dylan does and he chose Sanchez--just a short walk from where he works. I neglected to take a single picture of the place; but it is a pretty impressive-looking building and the restaurant itself inside is amazing to look at. Dylan helped me order something since most of what was on the menu was rather ... unknown and untried and completely unheard of (this illustrates how completely inexperienced I am in eating anything other than "American").

Anyway, we had such a nice lunch! It was good to sit and talk and actually be able to concentrate on just our conversation instead of three or four different ones going on at the same time (at Dylan's house). I'm very glad we were able to share this time together.

Since this is Dylan's very LAST year of his 30's, I fashioned his birthday card around an old and favorite song of his dad's: "Forever Young."

Here is the card I made for Dylan:

The inside of the card looked like this:

This picture was on the back of the card:

It took me awhile to find these pictures, mostly because I have SO MANY BINS of pictures. I am glad I found these, though, to use for Dylan's birthday card. Thankful for the visual reminders of days gone by--precious times with this person who was once just a little boy, who was sweet in every way. I see some of Cal in all of these pictures--do you? 

I also enclosed in Dylan's card a scanned picture of he and his dad from when Dylan was about two years old:

I like the way Dylan and Jim are looking at each other with a certain tenderness.

After our lunch, I picked Erin and Cal up from Miss Carrie's house and drove over to Dylan and Kelly's. Cal fell asleep on the way home, so we drove my car into their garage, opened all the car windows, and let Cal nap while Erin and I read some library books together and just hung out 1-on-1 while we waited for Aidan's bus. 

I DO wish I had taken some pictures of what followed when Aidan came home, but I didn't! I had brought a bunch of paper airplane books along and we folded some and flew them all over the house. We had SO MUCH FUN. Dear Aidan was SO into this! He was just bursting with happiness and fun. So thankful for these little ones to love.

May 30 Water FUN!

Tuesday: Erin has been asking for WEEKS about WHEN I was going to set up my water table. Every time she asked, I would answer: "When it gets warm outside." Well ... in a week's time it certainly got WARM.

Erin was thrilled to see ALL of the water toys ready to play with. My driveway is in need of repaving (and has been in that need since I moved here almost a dozen years ago no), and the surface is rough and yucky. So I purchased these grey foam mats (at $5-Below) that fit together like a puzzle and gives the kiddos a nice soft surface on which to stand or sit.

Cal really enjoyed the water table and the squirt guns ...

He loved the little unicorns ...

He's a very cause-and-effect type of person (as is Brendan) and so he kept pouring water on the upper level to create RAIN below.

Look at his dear little face! By the way, his red face is NOT due to sunburn! He just gets RED like that when he is HOT. Brendan's face used to do that too! And Matthew's!

We also decided that washing my car would be a good idea ...

These next pictures are SO funny of Cal ...

This washing brush was a little bit heavy for him at first, but he put forth a lot of effort and finally was able to use it.

Look how pleased he is!

Erin too! She LOVES to wash my car.

Mr. Cal, however, spent as much time washing my yucky cement driveway as he did washing my car ...

sigh ... he would get the brush full of dirt and then proceed to use it on my car. I showed him the dirt on my car when he would use a dirty brush, but he would just laugh and keep right on ...

May 30 First Zoo Day

Tuesday:  I took Cal to the zoo today! Just ME and CAL!!! You see, Erin was at a special "summer" 3-day special pre-school event from 9-noon today (tomorrow and the next as well). So we delivered Erin to school and drove over to the ZOO. 

I brought along my old umbrella stroller because Cal likes to run around, but he favors being carried--"Carry me!" he will demand! No can do, young Cal--this grandma is getting older by the minute. Hence, the stroller. Obviously, I let him in and out of the stroller as he pleased.

Cal is the cutest little person. INDEPENDENT to the core, truly his own little person. I love him passionately. He is super interesting to be with. You just never know what his next move will be.

He LOVES steering wheels and driving ... maybe he is a future INDY-500 racer! This tractor isn't much of an example of that--but dear Cal was so pleased to drive it anyway.

I think the meerkats were our highlight today. They were very active and entertaining.

We rode the funicular up, up, up the hill and went searching for LIONS and TIGERS ... but alas, they were NOT very active and in hiding the whole time.

We were at the zoo a little less than two hours. Grandma Carol pushed the stroller over most of the boardwalks available, up and down hill, and was completely wiped out by 11:20 ... at which time we returned to the car and took a very round-about way to return to Erin's school by noon. Thankfully, little Cal fell asleep a few minutes before we arrived to pick up Erin. He is a little honey.

May 27 Kaity-Girl all dressed up

I have a LOT of photos of Kaity from Saturday. I think I'll just post my favorite ones right here!

Kaity will be ELEVEN in four weeks. She is tall for her age (5'1") and sometimes, especially when dressed up like this, she could be mistaken for a much older girl. Many people at the wedding assumed she was THIRTEEN, but she is NOT!

I love these pictures of you, dear Kaity!

I think this one (below) is my very favorite one ... mostly because Kaity looks so happy and relaxed ... so contented.

Her shoes were KILLING her after a few hours ...

... time to ditch them (cute as they are)!

Mrs. Frazee (with the accent on the ZEE) partnered with Kaity--which was super kind of her! There wasn't enough men/boys to go around, and line dancing/square dancing often ends up with girl/girl partners. Kaity was fine with it.

Kaity had SO MUCH FUN ... look at her smiles!

I will always treasure these pictures of Kaity, ALWAYS.

I'm going to have to ask Kaity what she was asking this gentleman about ...

Love you to the moon and back, Kaity.