July 29 More jumping

Saturday:  Since Kaity had met some new "friends" over at Altitude a few days ago, she wanted to go back today and meet them there once again. They SAID they could come--or at least they THOUGHT they might make it; but it turns out that they were unable to come. Usually, Kaity meets other kids to play with; but this evening, there really weren't many children Kaity's age to hang out with. So ... she just practiced her flips and other cool things she does on the trampolines.

Kaity can zoom through the air on the trapeze, do a full flip and land on her feet. This is NOT a picture of her doing that particular stunt--just saying this for the record.

She also likes to do this horizontal bounce against the padded walls and keep it up until she runs out of ... bounce.

See what I mean?

This is a really fun place for physically active kids. It's so good for them to run and jump and just be FREE.

The only thing that concerns me is ... how DARING kids get at this place. They jump head first, like they are diving into the deep end of a pool and flip just in time to NOT break their necks. I was relating a sad story about a kid who broke their neck almost 30 years ago and how difficult it has been for him. The story sobered her up a little bit ... for a few minutes at least.

Yikes, Kaity!

Please, Lord! Take care of these kids at Altitude! Thank you for this time with Kaity. She is a treasure to me.
 

July 27 Swimming/Jumping

Thursday:  We received an invitation from Brenda to swim over at her condo this afternoon. YES!!! It's super hot and humid in W. Michigan these last few days, so this will be great. And Kaity LOVES to swim.

I picked Kaity up at 3:00 from Jesse and we landed at Brenda's just after 3:30. We were already in our suits, so we just jumped in--without even feeling the water--it was SO refreshing. This is the first time all summer that I have actually been IN the water to swim.

Brenda has a lot of swim toys--rings and other "sinking" toys that can be thrown into a pool and then you get to dive to the bottom to retrieve them. Kaity about wore me out doing this activity a ton of times. But it was super good to SEE my friend Brenda, get to talk to her face-to-face, and still spend time with Kaity.

I cannot believe that I did not take one single picture over at Brenda's ... but it's TRUE! No pictures.

After we swam for about an hour, Kaity was ready to drive to my house--so we did. We ate our usual hotdogs and watermelon meal and then immediately left for ALTITUDE. Here are pictures from our time there:

Kaity really enjoys social interaction--she is open to talk to anyone, any age, anyone at all! SO ... she makes friends and plays, and just has a regular good time of it while she is here. That's always a happy thing to see as a grandma. 

After our time at Altitude, I took Kaity back to her mom's house. She texted me soon after asking if we can go to Altitude Saturday too--she met TWO special friends today while there (she thinks they are twins, a brother and sister just about her age) and they are trying to coordinate getting together again right here. I hope this works out for them.

July 25 Hectic but Good

Tuesday:  SO ... having four children who simultaneously and loudly talk \ and are VERY active can be challenging and quite exhausting. I always wonder if I am going to make it through the day without having an "ugly" spell ... which means, not behaving myself kindly or wisely. But I am very thankful for the strength to be with these kiddos, even if it is only once per week. And there are only a few more weeks until school goes back, which means Erin will begin Kindergarten and will no longer spend the day over here with me. I can't even tell you how sad that makes me! Yikes. 

I only took a few pictures today--all of which were when we were outside playing in the water. They sure get a kick out of washing my car! The hose trumps any and every other water toy I have.

Mr. Cal very much likes to use the brushes on my car. I have to watch him carefully, or he scrubs my driveway with it and then applies the DIRT to my car ... yikes ... cutie.

Brendan did fine outside--but he has grown up so much this year--water toys hardly hold his attention. He did well for awhile, though, and then I let him go back inside without the other kiddos.

It seems like the kids ate constantly today--that's okay--but it sure kept me hopping! Mac 'n cheese, hot dogs, tater tots, fruit, veggies, ice cream, snacks, etc. You should have seen my kitchen sink piled high with dishes! 

We drove back to their house and landed there at about 5:00. Erin and Cal were sleeping, so I let them sleep another half hour before trying to wake them up. Dylan and Kelly were home by 6:00 with pizza for dinner. I hung out for awhile before driving home. Thankfully, there is nothing on my Wednesday schedule until Bible study in the evening. I'm going to crash!

July 22 Kaity Sick

Saturday:  I came over at 3:00 to pick our Kaity up to take her over here--but when I got to Jesse's house, Kaity was not feeling well at all. We decided that she should just stay with Jesse and get some rest.

In the meantime, Jesse suggested that he and I watch "Get Smart" on his big screen. I think this film was made back in 2008 and they did a pretty good version of the old TV show (I grew up watching it). Anyway, we had a lot of fun laughing at some of the scenes--we laughed so hard at one scene that it even drew Kaity out of bed to check on us! 

I did visit with KT a little bit--but not very much today. I hope you feel better, Kaity. Hopefully Thursday we can do something together.

July 20 with KT

Thursday:  Kaity really really REALLY wanted to go swimming today--but the weather had been predicted to be stormy all afternoon today, so I didn't think it would be possible. However, it rained perhaps 30 minutes (a downpour) and then cleared up afterwards! The sun came out, the temps were mild, and it would have been a pretty good afternoon to swim. But ... I couldn't find a place for us to do that this afternoon. My friend, Brenda, was not available out at her condo that has the nice pool. Kaity didn't want to go to VerSluis (I don't blame her), and Lake Michigan was just too far to drive to (and had beach warnings up).

So we just stayed here and hung out together. Kaity was in an unusually talkative and pleasant frame of mind today, for which I was truly grateful. I love hanging out with her, listening to her talk, finding out what she thinks about, and just BEING with her. 

We played four rounds of UNO and Kaity won them ALL. 

Oh.my.word. Kaity looks SO MUCH like Chris in these pictures!

We did get on-line and order a few necessary items this afternoon--like a gift for Kenzie, and also for Emma (their birthdays are on the SAME day, different years). While we were on-line, we looked at a few puppets and then got many of my puppets out and played with them awhile. 

Kaity is really good at making our Charlie bird walk ... he looks almost REAL as he bops along.

When we drove back to Jesse's, he wasn't quite home yet; so we sat in the car and talked for a bit. Here are a few pictures I took of how Kaity likes to hang out at my car:

I love you so much, Kaity! Look at the beautiful Rose of Sharon blossoms growing on the side yard at Jesse's house:

I had such a nice few hours tonight with Kaity. Thank you so much, Lord.

July 18 with the O'Pahman's

Tuesday:  Brendan was at an afternoon museum "camp" with his good friend, Joanna, today; so he was not at my house. I missed him! I barely took any pictures of the children today--I was too busy trying to keep up with them.

Cal picked up one of my old calculator rulers (I forget where I even got these contraptions years ago) that no longer lights up or does anything whatsoever, and decided that it was a REMOTE to my computer. He was quite persistent about it too! He was using it to turn on my computer and change stations--except it didn't work one single bit, which frustrated him a tiny bit. He was okay, as long as I didn't contradict his fantasy about what it was able to do.

Erin played a lot with the cooking stuff. Plus, we read a ton of books together today. I love doing this with Erin. She is such a good listener and is so interested in the stories. Super fun to read to her. Our favorite book today wasn't really a story, it was more of just a fun and interactive book called "PRESS HERE". Ingenious. Aidan loved it too!

Meanwhile, APOP was busy setting up my cool Memory game with his very own family pictures. He really loves to do this. Following a few games, he decided to make up his OWN memory cards--so he went over to the art table and proceeded to do just that. 

Aidan is a very intense little person. I discovered today that he can read just about anything you hand to him. He was reading a "Calvin and Hobbes" book in the car on the way to my house and I could hear him reading words like "understood", "hesitation", "direction", etc. There doesn't seem to be a word that he can't figure out. Good for you, Aidan. What on earth will they do with him in the First grade?!?

I did "poop out" mid-afternoon and allow them to watch "The Secret Life of Pets" (the first movie). I have all of the character stuffed animals for the story, and the kids love to get them out and act out parts of the story using them.

We drove back to their house and arrived just before 5:00 when Brendan was being dropped off by Miss Carrie. I hung out with all of them at their house until Dylan and Kelly came home from work. It was a very nice day with these kiddos, and I am very thankful for it.
 

July 14 Another long walk

Friday:  I had intended to get up this morning just before sunrise--because morning light is so easy to photograph; but I stayed up way too late last night chatting with Julie, Christie, and Jen. We had such a nice talk together!

Later in the morning, I mentioned taking a long walk--south again--to the "point" to see what is around it! Christy, who LIVES here and knows this beach well, enthusiastically agreed to walk with me! However, she informed me that a little bit short of the "point" there is a small river/creek that flows out to Lake Michigan. Sometimes the river runs deep, but most of the time it is not too deep to cross. Anyway, Julie, Jen, Christy and I set out on our walk. We weren't totally sure how far south we would get, and that was okay because we just enjoy talking while we are walking. Here are some pictures of our walk:

There were WAVES today! Yes! I love waves. These are not terribly big waves, but they sure sounded amazing. Isn't that a great sound? Waves crashing along rocks and sand--it's the best.

This monarch followed us around for quite awhile, flittering in and out, over and under. I tried to get a good shot of her in flight--but even after manipulating these shots with my photo program, I am not very happy with them. 

Here is Jen catching our monarch while it was resting ... she showed me her pictures of it which were 100x better than the ones I took. 

I walked back to where she was and caught it for a brief second before it took off again.

What a wonderful beach on which to walk! No crowds!

We finally reached the pier that borders the little creek ...

We all thought this was quite an unusual color for a pier ...

Here is the little creek ... it's deeper than it looks!

We did find a place to cross it--none of us were wearing bathing suits, so our capris/shorts got kind of wet, but not too bad.

The picture below shows how far away the point STILL IS, even after crossing the creek. By this time, we had been walking for more than an hour and all of us needed to use a facility ... so we decided to end our exploring right here, turn around, and head back to the cottage.

What a gorgeous place!

Christy prepared us an oriental salad and fruit for lunch which we didn't eat until nearly 2:00 in the afternoon due to our long walk. Afterwards, we just hung around and visited for awhile before one-by-one we went our separate ways back home to Grand Rapids.

I will say ... if I ever lived at this place, no one would EVER be able to drag me away from it. They would have to resign themselves to burying me right here. 

I feel absolutely REFRESHED. Thank you, Lord.