More public museum fun!

Sunday:  July 31, 2016

Day two of my grandparent membership to the Grand Rapids Public Museum was used quite nicely! I picked the four cadets up at about 3:30 in the afternoon and we drove downtown to play at the museum. These guys crack me up. We parked in a FREE parking lot underneath the US-131, about a block or so from the museum. The children immediately climbed up underneath the bridge to see how high they could get! I did not realize, however, that there was a homeless person living underneath this bridge. We discovered him when we returned to the car and our hearts were sad for him. He was sleeping very soundly up where he had put his belongings (can you see them at the very right of the picture?)

 As soon as we walked through the museum doors and I had checked us in, the children found the Olympic medal platform and posed or so nicely for the dear grandma ...

This picture was my favorite. It was Em's too.

 Our little bitty girl joined us at last ... there were only THREE medals, so we gave her this racing award to hold--which is very appropriate for our fast-running pixie-girl.

 We took a very nice ride on the carousel. All of the children enjoyed it.

I love this of our Kaity

Chris and Matthew--you crack me up!

 Kaity proclaimed, "I'm not scared, Grandma!" and had so much fun riding the giraffe.

 Aren't these children so beautiful? I love them so much.

I super LOVE this picture!

 Emma was doing a bunch of silly stuff on her horse, and cracking Christopher up ...

 Matthew! You are such a riot!

 Emma, riding "side-saddle" like a fancy lady.

Kaity's cute piggies!

 Two gorgeous granddaughters ... how blessed I am.

 We walked from the carousel over to the trolley car and Emma posed like a pro with the old horse and buggy!

 We spent some time at the Robot Zoo ...

 These four raced from one thing to the next in a frenzy of activity. I loved watching their fun.

 Emma, checking out a platypus.

 Christopher operating the chameleon's eyes and tongue ...

 Laity-Girl doing a maze with a hippopotamus.

 And then the kiddos put on the camouflage and blended in with the walls for awhile ...

 I could hardly keep up with them, especially when they ran in different directions. I kept hearing my name, "Grandma, look!" and so I tried my best to be everywhere at once.

 This safari car was cool. It had a little screen that showed lions creeping closer and closer to the car.

 They kids pretended to take a deep sea dive over at EARTH EXPLORE.

 And they "rode" a hot air balloon too ...

 And met a great white that Christopher declared was "little."

 They all let me snap their picture by the space suit ... Emma (almost 14) decided it would be more appropriate for her to pose NEXT to the suit rather than inside of it. I like all of these pictures! Look at Kaity peeking out!

When it was just about time to leave, Emma had the great idea of sliding down the banister ... and since she was very good at this and did not appear to be in any danger whatsoever, I let her! Yikes. Emma accomplished this several times before an extremely polite and concerned security lady stopped by to inform us that this sort of thing was not allowed at the museum. She was super kind about it.

I don't dare post this picture anywhere but on this little-read blog--otherwise, I met get myself into trouble with a few parents. What a wonderful time we had exploring the museum!

We teach Nana a game and read Owl Babies to her!

Since we had a little free time Saturday evening, Brendan and I drove over to Nana's with one of Brendan's games: The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel. We decided to teach Nana how to play the game with us.

It's really a cute game and Brendan loves it. He was rather wound up, however, to be at a not-familiar place, and all of his powers of curiosity kicked in and it was difficult to keep him on task ... especially when he located a flashlight of Nana's and decided to take it all over her house to explore.

But, for the most part, we played one game of The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel. Nana won! Afterwards, Brendan read the entire "Owl Babies" book to Nana. He knows every word by heart and he is so animated when telling the story. It was a good visit with Nana and she invited us to come whenever we had a little extra time. 

Proud grandparent member at the Grand Rapids Public Museum

This past weekend marked the 6th anniversary for Dylan and Kelly, so I offered to take Brendan so that they could have some time to celebrate, grown-up style, Saturday afternoon and evening (even though their actual anniversary was Sunday). The forecast was more rain! Yuck. Where could we go that would be fun and dry?

 I googled around Grand Rapids for awhile and then landed on the site for the Public Museum. The present exhibits looked fun and interesting ... but the admission price--yikes! Thankfully and most wonderfully, they have a grandparent membership that is extremely reasonable! So I am now an official member at the Grand Rapids Public Museum (AND the zoo, AND the children's museum!). But what a great money-saver for us--yes!

 Our two favorite exhibits were EARTH EXPLORE and THE ROBOT ZOO. This is Brendan pretend driving a safari vehicle. There is a small video screen above the dashboard that shows lions creeping closer and closer ...

 We did everything possible that was there! We pretended to deep-sea dive, we rode on a hot air balloon, we explored Alaska a little bit, met a great white shark, and had all kinds of fun doing it.

 We also learned a little bit about chameleons, and Brendan was able to pretend he was blending into the background below ...

 He was super excited to see himself on the video screen all camouflaged!

 We went downstairs to the first floor and looked at the trolley that has been at the museum forEVER.

 Brendan was a wee bit sad that the doors were locked and that he could not drive it. :( Poor little one.

 Another favorite thing was the carousal. Brendan chose the giraffe to ride and he was SO pleased.

 Look at his sweet little face ...

 He is so darling, isn't he?

 Of course, I was being completely obnoxious with my camera ... but I couldn't help myself!

 Then we stepped outside and took a little walk by the river. Grand Rapids is such a pretty town.

 Brendan found several puddles to SURF across ...

 He was very FAST and delighted to run and play on these pretty pathways.

 We had a wonderful time downtown together.

Afterwards, we went to McDonald's and got Brendan a Happy Meal that included the little bird toy from The Secret Life of Pets, named Sweet Pea. And THEN we drove over to Nana's house to visit her ... (see that post please).

Thursday evening, July 28, with Brendan

Last Thursday evening was a drizzly rainy one, so instead of going to the beach like I had hoped we would be able to do, I brought Brendan over to my Beach House. On the way over, it was softly raining, and for some reason I was reminded of a very old song (1962), "Listen to the Rhythm of the Falling Rain." I began to sing it, not remembering all of the lyrics, but remembering the tune exactly. Dear Brendan, sitting in the back seat immediately picked up the tune and began singing with me! And he loved this little song SO much that he kept asking me to sing it for him. We had a 30 minute ride to my house and I think I sang this song to him a dozen times (what I could remember of it).

 When we got inside my house, I went to Youtube and found the original Cascade version of the song that I loved so well and I played it for Brendan ... and I replayed it ... and replayed it ... enough to where I was able to get our dinner ready set to go!

 Brendan was absolutely fascinated by the little bells that play and the whole orchestration of the song. He just loved it. Isn't he something?

 After dinner, we played with our toys, but ALWAYS the flashlight is the ultimate winner with Brendan.

 He decided to impersonate a lighthouse and was SO pleased that he was BIGGER than all of the other lighthouses I have around here.

Such a cutie, such a love, such a gift you are dear Brendan.

July 24, 2016 ANOTHER sleepover with Ems

 I am rather behind on posting current events around my little Beach House! I am pretty sure these pictures are from Sunday night, July 24, when Emma spent the night. This was after the free zoo night with all of the kiddos over at John Ball Zoo.

 This is a homemade strawberry-banana milkshake ... made especially with instructions from my own Emma Joy!

 Emma drank it down to the very last drop! I was happy just to watch her enjoying this!

I am pretty sure this is the Sunday night when we watched a movie Ems had brought over from her own collection, but I cannot remember the name of it--I think it was something about The Princess Diaries 2. Anyway, I'm glad she brought the movie over and that we could enjoy it together. It is so much fun to be with Emma. I love her so much!