July 6 IN Mill Creek

Thursday:  I picked my Kaity-Girl up today at 3:00, not knowing if Kenzie would be coming with us today or not--it turns out she and her mom have other plans for the afternoon, so it was just Kaity with me today. 

Since it was a decent weather day (after being 92 degrees with HIGH humidity on Tuesday), I asked Kaity if she would like to explore Mill Creek with me today. I had purchased water shoes for us last week for this very reason--but we had not used them yet! Kaity agreed to go with me. It's not far from Jesse's house at all--a 2-minute drive. We parked kind of behind the public library in the lot nearest the little bridge that crosses over Mill Creek to the park area. 

I took a bunch of pictures, and I just love them all.

Kaity (who loves the water and is not afraid of anything) was the first to "test" the waters (naturally). She said it was COLD and a little bit "slimy" ... hmm.

And I (also quite naturally) was enamored with all of the wild flowers growing ... EVERYWHERE.

I wondered just how long it would be before one of us slipped and fell in. I was hoping very much that it wouldn't be me because ... my camera would be ruined ... as well as Kaity's phone (which was riding in my camera case).

So actually, NEITHER of us FELL in ... Kaity kind of just WALKED in bit by bit. I chose NOT to follow her this direction because its was getting deeper than I thought would be a good idea. 

When Kaity began rolling up her shorts, I beckoned her to come back and try the opposite direction. She did exactly that! Yes!

It was rough walking in this little creek--not because we were not prepared--the water shoes worked GREAT; but still--rocks and rocks! Very uneven and unpredictable. Much better when we were only ankle deep and could SEE the crazy things ... but more difficult when they were covered up by underwater weeds and vines.

It was warmer than we expected out here today. I knew it wouldn't be long before Kaity figured a way to get totally WET ...

She ran ahead of me a lot. I was walking super slow, again protecting my camera and her phone ... and my body!

Oh, Kaity! YOU.ARE.THE.BEST!

Oh the simple pleasures of LIFE!

I finally saw an opportunity to get OUT of the creek by climbing up a small bank that led to stairs ... so I got OUT of the creek in order to walk on this bridge and get pictures of Kaity below.

Look at her GO! Speedy!!

I love this young granddaughter so much. She is a JOY to me in so many ways. I love to just be with her and enjoy WHO SHE IS. Make her Yours, Lord! Shape her into a young person who knows You, loves YOU, and follows in all Your ways. Please, I ask.

July 1 with KT

Saturday:  Kaity came over for a little while today. She was pretty consumed with playing games on her phone, so I just worked around my little place, tidying up, cutting up fruit, doing a bit of cleaning, etc. 

I decided to make her some chicken and rice--not exactly the way she is used to enjoying it because my oven stopped working last week and the replacement won't be here until Monday--but I have already-cooked chicken that I can add to the rice and broccoli, so she will eat it just fine. 

It took Kaity all of eight minutes to eat what had taken me 35 to prepare, but that was okay. I did up the dishes, cleaned up the kitchen, checked my email, watched a little bit of news, and then suggested that we drive over to Altitude and let Kaity do some jumping. We had talked about this earlier, and she was finally ready!

I didn't take many pictures today while she was jumping. I'm lousy at action shots--never have figured out how to make my camera take stop-action pictures; but I'll post the few I did take.

Kaity has learned how to do a complete body flip from the trampoline unto this giant "pillow" and stick her landing! She's quite pleased with herself about this, and I'll have to tell you, I'm quite impressed as well!

It's times like this, though, that I wish I could turn back the clock and be ELEVEN again (but only just for an hour!) so that I could bounce around on these cool trampolines. It looks like so much fun. I love watching all the different kids and how they jump and do their acrobatic stunts.

I'm very glad we ended up over at Altitude this evening. I love to see Kaity laugh and play like this. She recognized a boy from her school tonight, and the two of them ran around and played together nearly the entire hour. How much better than sitting around looking at a tiny screen in your hand?!?!?!

I am thankful for you, Kaity-dear, and love you to the moon and back.

June 30 Rockford

Friday:  We lost power in the storm last night ... so ... no lights, no FANS, no opening the refrigerator to make meals, etc. As a consequence, Ruthanne and Terry and I drove out to Rockford to eat our dinner. We ate at a place I didn't even know existed until just lately--"The Roasted Pickle". I ordered a fish sandwich (how surprising is that?), and it was delicious. The extra bonus to this place was the fact that we could eat outside, in view of the beautiful Rockford Dam.

After we finished eating, we took a little walk and since I had my camera with me, I snapped a few pictures:

We walked across 10-Mile to visit a bookstore (the name of which I can't remember), and after that, since we were so close to this board walk along the Rogue, we walked it for a little while. I've explored here in the winter months and taken a bunch of icy photos and I can't decide which are prettier--the gorgeous green or the icy white.

We walked around by the dam for a little bit, admiring the flowers and listening to the awesome sound of the water ... it's so refreshing.

It's been super hot and humid these last few days. We are hoping our power returns by the time we get back home--it's predicted to do that by about 6:30.

We got back "home" and played our usual rounds of Bananagrams over at Ruthanne and Terry's. Tonight, we played outside on their beautiful porch because it was too stinkin' hot to play inside with no fans. While we were playing, a kind neighbor walked by and told us her power just went back on! Yes! How spoiled I am by electricity--I would make such a lousy pioneer.

June 29 Celebrating KAITY

Thursday:  I actually got to celebrate with Kaity on the actual DATE of her birthday this year! It fell on a Thursday; and thankfully, nothing else was going on in Kaity's family during the time I usually have her (they had plans for later on), so she came over! I'm glad I thought ahead about this a little bit because lately I am never quite sure if I will have only Kaity ... or if Kaity will invite Kenzie as well.

It turned out that Kenzie AND Harper came over to help us celebrate. We sure had a fun time. It was a super hot afternoon but we did okay, even though I do NOT have air conditioning. I have plenty of fans!

We had Kaity open her gifts (from me) right away. Here she is opening her card:

Harper gets right IN the activity at hand ...

Here is Kaity trying to guess what the tiny surprise present is ...

She is making all sorts of guesses, and I am giving her clues ...

I told her we had seen this at the gift shop at one of the places we had visited recently (that's the reason for this rather bizarre facial expression) ... because she could NOT remember pointing out something this little to bring to my attention.

So ... this is a JOURNEY BRACELET, an animal tracker! Kaity pointed it out to me at Meijer Gardens (or was it the zoo?) a few weeks ago and said she would chose the LION ...

Evidently, you can go on-line with the bar code on the bracelet packaging and find "your" animal, where it lives, and follow its movements!

Kaity was SURPRISED! I really like her smile in these pictures. It was fun to get her something she wasn't expecting (for a change).

Here she is opening up the one thing she DID know about ... this is a SMART watch.

Here are the girls all playing HEDBANZ together. It's so much fun playing this game with kids! You can learn so much about each other just from the questions that are asked.

Harper was big on playing with every toy on my shelf--and I don't blame her! She has a very good time with all of the PlayMobile toys I have: the treehouse, the playground, the camping set, and the horses and stables.

Kaity was finding more out about her watch. We were able to enter in her height, weight, and "step" distances (all in metrics) so that she can use the watch to monitor her physical activity.

I love these pictures of you, Kaity.

Kenzie really likes these Magnatiles I have (even though they are not the official brand). She loves to build stuff with them. I DO TOO!

The girls all ate a hot dog, plenty of watermelon, cantaloupe, chips, and drinks--we let that food settle for a little bit and then we got out the cake. I LOVE this cake. It's an Arnie's roll cake--the cream in the middle is SO smooth, sweet, and absolutely yummy. 

We lit her candles, sang "Happy Birthday", and she blew all 11 candles out on the first breath!

Love you so so much, dear Kaity. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

 

June 29 Kaity's birthday card

This is the card I designed this year for Kaitlynn's eleventh birthday:

 

All of these pictures of Kaity are from the last two months in her life. I have SO MANY great photos of her--it was difficult to chose which ones to use. The front cover of her card was from the day we went to the John Ball Zoo.

These next pictures are from our afternoon at Deer Track Junction:

This picture is from our VERY COLD day at Lake Michigan ... when Kaity went swimming in water that was 57 degrees with a gusty wind blowing and an outside temperature of 74! It's true, Kaity--you DO bring me a lot of JOY. I love this verse in Psalm 139 about God's thoughts about us being SO NUMEROUS, they outnumber the grains of sand. That's a LOT of thoughts, Lord!

The back of her card is all from the sweet wedding we attended for Jen and Joe back a few weeks ago.

Doesn't Kaity look so pretty all dressed up? I loved this day with you, Kaity!