After 10 days of reading books, playing games, telling stories, and sitting in her lap, we had to say goodbye to Grandma at the airport today.
The kids were sad, but it was our 2-year-old who had the hardest time. He’s probably wondering why we would leave her at this strange place. And why would she just walk away when we’ve been having so much fun together?
He was smiling during the kissing and hugging goodbye, but when she disappeared into the airport, this is how he looked:
I thought I’d see if he’d tell me how he was feeling:
Aww Sometimes its hard living so far from our family.
A few days before Christmas, I told the kids that there was a family gift that wasn’t going to be delivered in time for Christmas. Instead, it was coming the day after, on Sunday. And since the delivery trucks didn’t work on Sunday, if we wanted our gift, we had to go pick it up. Heehee. They totally fell for it!
So, I got everyone to clean up the house for the ‘big’ present we were going to pick up. We piled in the car and headed to the package pickup at the airport.
(Pardon the shaky part where I’m trying to get out of the car and still film)
We had a great 10 days with Grandma!
The now-famous Red Bow
Jacob shrieked “Granma Lona!” every morning when she came downstairs. Thanks to the stories she recorded onto CD a few years ago, he skipped the usual toddler warm-up period when the ‘stranger’ relative comes to visit.
Our last morning together. It was great the Grandma was leaving until the late afternoon. Lots of time for playing together.
Alex and the kids made waffles for Grandma’s last breakfast here.
The kids all made handmade gifts for Grandma (Chris made her a clay ornament). I put them all in a box to ‘ship’ to her and then pulled the box out of my closet when she arrived.
A beautiful after Christmas markdown Grandma picked out for her granddaughter.
Hey, look. It’s me. In an actual picture. Don’t see that too often. Me and my mom. I think she looks like me. Don’t you?
Over the last year, my littlest has decided that the most fascinating creatures in the world are dogs.
He’ll run up to any dog, any size, to look it over and give it a pat. Of course it’s only on his terms, and if a dog, especially the big ones, take a step towards him, he’ll usually jump back to safety. The funny thing is, as soon as they turn and walk off, he’ll follow, and follow, and follow. . . until I notice he’s halfway down a sidewalk . . . following a dog home.
At a park, he’s pretty good about staying and playing with all the kids, unless a dog has walked through the park, and then I’ve got to keep a close eye on him, because he’s liable to just head off after it.
After a couple of hot hours running around the park with our homeschool playgroup friends, I found this little guy plopped on the blanket taking a rest.
I wonder what’s going through his head, sometimes.
Really tuckered out!
Such serious thinking! Or maybe he’s just annoyed at mom and her incessant picture taking
Alex enjoyed the last practice of the season, where the parents played against the kids. Dad’s in his work clothes and sandals, but it wasn’t enough of a handicap. The parents won by a point! (Despite the moms warning them that the point was to let the kids win . . . dads!)
The only revenge for the kids . . . how whooped the dads were by the end of the game
When I turned 8-years-old, I was able to go Activity Days at the church. It’s fun and there are only girls. My brother goes to Scouts for boys. I like Activity Days because you can make pictures and do crafts. There is a lot of creativity in Activity Days. That’s what I like most about it. Some of the girls, since they’re around my age, are really fun to play with. I have a friend named Bailey and her sister Alexandra who is older and also goes to Activity Days. Bailey and her sister are really nice. There are also some girls who are in my class at church like Addie, Hailey, Kelsey, Briella and Faith. Briella has an older sister who goes too. Here name is Sawyer. There are also some other girls that I don’t know too well, but they’re pretty fun to play with when it’s time to play games.
It’s barely summer and one of my favorite things to do is swim. The first day of summer we went to the pool. There is a long swimming test. I tried it the first time of the year. You have to get to a far end and then all the way back. I got all the way to one side and a quarter of the way back on my first time of the summer. It was kind of cool, but my stomach hurt a little because I had just eaten dinner.
I also do horseback riding. This is my second year. I have a teacher named Sarah. She teaches me how to ride the horse and how to make it do things. And it’s fun to ride. I can do cool things with the horse, like trotting and walking and making the horse go and stop. To make the horse stop, I say, “Ho!” To make the horse go, I say, “Walk”. To make the horse trot, I say, “Trot! Trot!” and click my mouth.
I can also dance really well and sing really well. I used to do dance class and I was pretty good. I went on stage in front of a bunch of people a couple times. But, now, I can’t do ballet since I’m doing horseback riding which I think is pretty fun.
I’m also homeschooled. Lots of people tell me I’m lucky.
In our church I hear some girls chatting. They said, “You get to be off of school for a week? Wow!”
I said, “I’m homeschooled.”
They said, “You’re lucky!”
They keep talking about it. It’s kind of fun to be told I’m lucky all the time.
We have a homeschool group. When I go there, it’s a lot different. Most of the people there know what it’s like to have people call them lucky, because they’re all homeschooled.
I won this card game playing with at my homeschool group
There are also some times when people come to my house and play. That’s pretty fun. These are the names of some of my best friends: Bailey, Alexandra, Sabrina, my cousin Kaitlyn, Faith, Hailey, Addie, Kelsey and Briella. I have already mentioned some of these names, except for Sabrina. She’s younger than me, but she likes to play with me. She can be pretty fun to play with, but there’s also times when she wants to play the opposite of me.
I love making all kinds of recipes in the kitchen!
Here’s what I’ve been up to:
We went to Independence Lake with some of our homeschooling friends, James, Zade, and Laythe.
The mussel I found at the bottom of Independence Lake
I brought my snorkeling set. I went out really deep and was using my snorkeling set. I liked it because I could just look into the lake and not have to come up for breath. I could see fish there and when I was out really deep, I could dive down and get clay in certain spots. At one of the bouys that marked the borders that you’re allowed to swim in, about a yard away, you go straight down and there are some rocks that open up into a little hole that is full of clay.
I remember a different time we were at Independence Lake. I went out in the water with some friends and we had a surf board and some kick boards. We hooked two kick boards on the sides of the surfboard and me and another kid sat on the kick board with our goggles and flippers ready to dive. My other friend Kyle, sat on the tip of the surf board and paddled it to the spot, with a bucket behind him on the surf board. Me and the other kid would dive down into the hole and get clay out and bring it up and put it in the bucket and dive down to get more. There was some sand that was really deep and a bluish color. We dived down to get that. We mixed it together with the clay and made this bluish clay. We molded that into different sculptures. One of them, we put on a small sand castle.
I have also been playing soccer lately and we have a really good team. I work really well with Jonny, who is really good at playing soccer. One team we played against, all of their players were in one spot, and Jonny took the ball and got it through them all and made a goal. We have won all our games, except one. I really like soccer and I’ve been getting better and better at it. I’ve scored about 10 goals in all the games that we’ve played. Jonny has scored probably more than half the goals that we’ve made.
I have been making a lot of progress in my scouts. I only have a few more things to do before I get my Webelos badge. I already have some things done that I need for the Arrow of Light. Cub Scout Day Camp is coming up soon. I’m looking forward to it because I’m going to get a lot of requirements done. We will get to do some fishing, some wrist rockets, bows and arrows, and BB guns. We might do some water fights.
Sometimes its hard living so far from our family.
