June 6 Deer Tracks, Part Two

Saturday (continued):  Since we were all out of carrots with which to feed the animals, we purchased another cup. I was thinking Aidan would want to go and find the little goats and feed them, but when I asked him where we should go next--he said he really wanted to go back to the little pigs!

SO ... we revisited the pigs with fresh carrots!

They gobbled them up just like they hadn't eaten in a year!

I snapped this picture of the description of these guys because I had forgotten what they were called. These are Kunekune (pronounced "Cooney-cooney") pigs from New Zealand (originally at least). They are very friendly little animals and like to be around people. They are super cute, aren't they?

Aidan had such a good time interacting with them.

He wasn't one bit afraid of them, but he followed instructions very well about not hand feeding them. He wasn't afraid to pet them, and they enjoyed it when he did.

I think it would be wonderful if all kids could live on farms for at least part of their lives. Animals are so good for children.

This is the rather large slide in the pig enclosure ...

From the pig enclosure, you can view the back of the budgie pavilion.

There is a rather nice tractor (John Deere) for kiddos to pretend to drive.

Aidan and I did a few duck races which Aidan won every single time!

The kangaroos were all napping when we went by their place. I wish they had been up and hopping around like they were when I was here two weeks ago with Brendan. They are very fun to watch when they are awake. But still ... it was nice to see them up close, even if they were all tuckered out.

We went to see the prairie dogs next. They are such cute little animals.

Aidan was pretty happy to go into the tunnels and get a really close look at them.

Isn't this such a great place? I love it here.

I asked Aidan if he wanted to walk over and visit the bears or the guinea pigs, but it was about 12:30 by this time and Aidan was hungry. That was fine with me. You can see a lot and do a lot in two hours at Deer Tracks. Since they put a band on your arm, you are free to come and go all throughout the day; but I knew we would not return on Saturday.

We drove over to the Culver's in Rockford and enjoyed a very nice meal together. Aidan got our table ready while I ordered our food. We enjoyed eating together and just hanging out.

I love this picture of you, Aidan. You are growing up so fast. You have such a grown-up way about you--a rather commanding, logical, responsible outlook on life, kind of like a mini-adult. 

I sure loved having you over at my house this weekend, Aidan. I am thankful for you, dear grandson. 

June 6 Deer Tracks, Part One

Saturday:  I checked the weather before Aidan and I left this morning and the forecast is down to 0% chance of rain after 11am this morning and all throughout the afternoon. Thank you, Lord!

We arrived at Deer Tracks Junction at about 10:20 (due to closed roads and misunderstood detours on my part), purchased our tickets, a cup of carrots (for the goats, pigs, etc.), and three seed sticks for the Budgies. 

Aidan wanted to begin with the PIGS so that's where we went first. Aidan has quite a collection of PIG stuffed animals, many of which he brought to the sleepover last night. I love to watch him with these little guys. He is so amused with them and so kind to them.

They had signage stating NOT to feed the pigs by hand but rather to drop the carrots on the ground and let them retrieve the food that way. Evidently, these little guys mistake fingers for food ...

Aidan was very careful as he walked and dropped carrots for them.

We had a whole group around us for a long time--these little piglets were hungry!

Aidan said the little black one was his favorite.

Just behind the pig enclosure is where the llamas are kept. Aidan wasn't interested in feeding the llamas. Perhaps he has seen one-too-many videos of spitting llamas ...

Aidan was very content to stay right here with the pigs. He fed them every single carrot!

The EMU are right next to the pigs. At the end of the last season here at the park, the EMU were quite large. But these little ones are only a few months old. The bigger EMUs were located in an enclosure next to this one. These "babies" were quite aggressive when I held out a carrot. I was glad I was quick in my release or their beak would have pinched me quite hard! They are very cute, though, aren't they?

Quite endearing, I would say!

Since we were all out of carrots, we moved on to the Budgie house. I had a feeling that Aidan would NOT be relaxed in here with all of these birds--and I was right. He very soon gave me his seed sticks and got himself to a shady section where no people were feeding the birds and just watched for a little bit. I asked him to take a few pictures first, so he did.

I finally handed off the two cups and remaining seed to a few children whose seeds had run out, and then Aidan and I left the Budgies and went on to explore elsewhere.

This wheel tube is very cool--all the kiddos like messing around with it. Since it had rained so hard overnight, it was a little damp inside--see the little puddles? Aidan did a pretty good hamster imitation for awhile and got the tube moving.

We remembered to bring a hand flashlight as well as the headband flashlight for exploring tunnels. Ten years ago (!!) I also went into the tunnels and crawled around with the kids ... and even climbed to the very tippy top! I can no longer do that (sadly). Aidan had a blast, though, crawling around from structure to structure, in and out of tunnels.

I love heights! I so regret my painful knees because it really puts the damper on climbing, stairs, squatting, etc. But I really have nothing to complain about when I consider at other folk's health struggles.

I'll post some more pictures in a bit ...

June 5 Aidan's Sleepover

Friday Night: The kiddos' last day of school for 2025-26 was a half day yesterday. !! Aidan was very happy to have me pick him up at 3:30 this afternoon for his turn at a sleepover.

As soon as we walked through my door, Aidan went to my pantry closet and began to look for a snack. I told him I had a delicious batch of my homemade French toast already waiting for him in the crock pot. He grabbed and chair and we were eating our "dinner" at 4:15! I had baked some bacon yesterday and re-heated some of that to go with the French Toast. For some reason, Aidan loves my French toast. I can't tell you how relieving it is to me to have at least SOMETHING to offer this food-challenged boy that he actually likes. 

We hung out afterwards, doing various things--playing Battle Box first of all. I purchased this game at the toy store in Grand Haven about a year or so ago. I watched people playing with it inside the store and thought it would be great to add to my toy collection here. If I had it to do over again, I'm not sure I would have bought it! The shooters don't have enough "umph" in them to really send the marble flying at an appropriate speed to withstand the barriers, and we do ric-a-shay the marbles off the sideboards but find that we need more force to really do it justice. However, all of the kiddos enjoy playing this game and request it every week when they are over.

We started our movie at a little after 6:00. I let Aidan choose one of my movies that I have on the shelf. Aidan chose "Home Alone One" which we practically have memorized--but Aidan gets a bang out of the characters in this story, and the robbers are pretty funny too. I made up some root beer floats for us, which we drank out in the kitchen prior to watching the movie. THEN I popped Aidan some popcorn to eat during the movie.

The movie was over by 8:00 and since it was too early to go to bed, we played the game of "LIFE." It went much better with only two of us playing. Aidan ended up with FIVE children and FOUR pets. We had to use an extra car for his family because it was so large.

Aidan looks a little bit sleepy here ... and the game lasted until about 9:30. He was ready to settle down for the night by now and went right to bed and right to sleep! I did too.

It rained all throughout the night, which made me very glad because I was praying the rain would be out of our area by Saturday morning so that I could take Aidan to Deer Tracks. I had looked at the week's weather predictions back on Monday, and at that time the weekend looked pretty WET. I asked the Lord if He couldn't please make it possible for good weather Saturday ... and when we woke up, I could see the sky clearing and it was just barely sprinkling.

Aidan got up a few minutes prior to when I did. I found him sitting at the round table eating chips and playing his arcade games. I asked him if he wanted a bowl of cereal and milk, but he declined and stated he would rather have chips. I poured him some milk and told him that before we left for Deer Tracks, we would each have another bowl of French toast so that we wouldn't be hungry while we were there.

We played a game of Chess Friday night and another one Saturday morning. Aidan is a very good Chess player! I am NOT a very good Chess player, but it was still fun to play these games with Aidan.

We had about 90 minutes left before we had to leave for the park, and Aidan announced he wanted to make a sock puppet. I hauled out the bin of sock puppet material and Aidan got to work. He decided he would make a RED snake. He was happily busy at the design and construction until it was time to leave for Deer Tracks Junction at 10am! 

June 2 More time with the kiddos

Tuesday:  The kiddos had a half day of school today (and just two more half days of school left for the entire school year!), so I picked them all up at noon-ish and brought them to my house to eat lunch and hang out for the afternoon.

These four beautiful grandchildren! The picture below is a picture I snapped on my phone of a picture that is soon to hang in their house--taken by a very dear photographer friend of the family. Look at them!

Brendan turned 14 in February. Aidan is 9 as of mid-March. Erin will be 8 in the next little while. Gregory had his sixth birthday in May! They are quite a group: active, happy, creative, funny, loud (!!), and a little bit goofy sometimes. I love them dearly. They have such interesting personalities.

I decided to try playing the game of LIFE with all four of them in the afternoon.

Note to self: NEVER play LIFE with four children this age all together! It's too much! We cracked up a lot while playing it, but I was super exhausted by the time the game had ended. Little Gregory and I were partners (since he is not yet a reader).

Isn't this a great picture of Erin? I could eat her up sometimes, she is so precious.

One problem with the game is that it takes too long to take a turn, because a bunch of stuff happens during each person's turn. So Gregory got extra fidgety, and Aidan lost patience with the whole thing after we'd been playing for a solid HOUR. I don't blame him! He did end up winning the game. I think he will enjoy it much better with only two players. I've never truly liked the whole premise of the game ... money, money, money ... you know, that whole mindset. I will say, however, that this updated version of the game does facilitate a lot of fun interaction with the players that has nothing whatsoever to do with money. Erin was thrilled with the fact that each married couple could have "babies". She announced that she wanted A LOT OF BABIES! She ended up with triplet girls and was so pleased. I think Brendan ended up with FOUR pets (he was so happy about this) and three children.

We also enjoyed some waffle ice cream cones with mint-chocolate chip ice cream. YUM.

Near the end of our afternoon we drove over to Dwight Lydell Park to play for awhile. We brought a bunch of paper airplanes with us to fly around--but the wind wreaked havoc with them!

However, we did meet a very nice "grandma" whose name was Mary. She was at the park with her grandson, Sawyer. They flew airplanes with us for awhile too and Sawyer took his favorite one home with him. It was nice meeting these kind folk at the park.

I delivered the kiddos back to their house at 6:00 sharp. Ella was walking down the street as we drove up. She was all set to take over the care of these guys until Kelly returned home from her evening responsibilities. 

It was a good day! I was super tired, but the good kind of tired--you know, when you've done all you can do and most of it turned out just fine! Thankful. So thankful.

May 30 HARPER

Saturday Evening: I can't remember how many years now that I have been invited to Harper's birthday party; but I am sure it is many! You see, Harper lives right next door to Jesse, and Harper and Kaity have been friends since they were little kids--Kenzie too!

Scott has been an almost best-friend of Jesse's since they were in 7th grade! How cool that they get to live next door to each other, which is due in large part to the generosity of Scott (but it's too complicated to explain here in this blog). However, Jesse has been very helpful to Scott in many ways too--so it's a two-way thing actually. Scott has a lot of the same interests and abilities Jesse has: they like to tear cars apart, rebuild engines, run sound equipment, fix stuff, etc.

I hardly took any pictures! Firstly, their DOG (the name of which escapes me) is a BIG pet they had tied on a leash nearby where Jesse and Scott are standing in the above picture. However, I didn't SEE the dog and when I approached and started walking away, it jumped and RAN toward me and then leaped, with it's paws extended (which looked really nice on my once very clean WHITE jogging pants), all over me! I don't do dogs, and even less BIG barking jumping HUGE dogs. Naturally, since I was taken by surprise, I screamed (embarrassing). Sigh. I did recover, but I stayed my distance from the beast.

Here is Harper! She is eleven now. She's a great kid and a lot of fun to be around. I try to make a birthday card every year for her. This year, however, I had to go to Facebook and steal some photos from her mom's account in order to have enough to make a decent card. I just haven't seen Harper much this year--mostly due to Kaity not coming over to my place anymore ... 

Harper's folks go all out on making sure their girls birthday celebrations are first rate. All of their family show up and many friends too.

Happy #11 to Harper!