saturday fun

The boys requested donuts for breakfast this morning.

After Truman’s baseball game, we were invited over to Fred and Sherri’s community pool for water games and then hot dogs at their house.

  

It was a fun day and at the end of it we went home and got ready for bed and THEN

it was off to the airport to pick up their mom and dad!

friday night at the park

We actually had all of our sand equipment in the car when we went to the beach on Wednesday and unintentionally left it in the car. The boys made their own fun, but tonight they had equipment to add to their fun. When we went to check out a new park, it came in quite useful. It also added to the fun of the other kids who came along later and we had quite a crowd sandbuilding together.

thursday with nolan

While his big brothers are at school, Nolan travels around with me. Yesterday we shopped for vintage clothes in Hillcrest, but today was more to his liking. This cool car at Ralphs Grocery Store brought all kinds of smiles, both to his face as well as the other shoppers.

After we returned home, he came to me and told me that he had a bee in his ear. I was pretty worried about him because he has had a runny nose since I arrived. I could only imagine some horrible ear infection that was going to keep both of us awake allllll night long.  I decided to call the doctor and we went for a check.

No bee.

(The doctor checked for an infection AND an insect.)

He did get a  Mickey Mouse sticker though, and if you love Mickey Mouse as much as he does, then you might decide to have a bee in your ear everyday.

wednesday night in california

It was my first full day tending the California boys. After school, we drove to Carlsbad and picked up my mom. We ordered our dinner from Norte, picked it up and then walked to the beach from there.  We had a great picnic! It was a fabulous evening on the southern California coast, no sweatshirts needed.

waiting out the storm and counting bingos

One of the things that I love about Florida…really, I do love it…is that you can go into the grocery store on a sunny day and go out, or rather try to go out 15 minutes later, but can’t for the rain deluge. It turns into an unplanned break. Brianna and I hopped onto the window seat to watch.

 

 

 

And while watching the storm, I spotted 4 Bingos*.

Apart from that, we just hung out between the double sets of sliding doors and waited with the rest of the Publix patrons for the storm to subside enough to get to our car only partially wet rather than fully drenched.

 

 

*Instructions

• 1  Any time you see a yellow car, yell, "Bingo!" Schoolbuses, taxis, and construction vehicles do not count. Two people can't pick the same car.
• 2 You can spice things up by adding other categories: gold cars are "Blingo"; silver cars are "Zingo"; red cars are "Yahtzee"; blue cars are "Scrabble," etc. etc., but in our family we only play Bingo, oh and half bingo, which is a half white and half yellow car and counts as 2  bingos in our family rules.

I don’t think I will never look at a yellow car again without thinking of this game whether or not I am with my grandkids.

grandkid camp 2011

It’s been a great week!

 

 

*Special thanks to Steve Ebanks for this picture and the new individual ones for these three on the sidebar.

camp lake days

Every day has been an art in nature day at the lake. But today the kids asked for a Lake Only Day. (Some of the pictures from this week also include our neighbor, Christopher Ruggie.)

So glad they love it!

    

I promise…

I was not trying to dump either Courtney or Truman when they got thrown from the tube (on separate occasions) but they both seemed quite pleased that they have bragging rights and have joined the ranks of air catchers.

pottery art day

This morning we went to All Fired Up for a more traditional art project today.

 

 

 

  

 

The boys and I went over to the park while we waited for Papa and Courtney to finish up. Luckily the local train came through for some real excitement.

Then we had lunch at NBA City.

We’ll be delivering their masterpieces when we see them all in June.

art to print day

The pictures today can’t begin to capture our fabulous experience. The kids loved the giant machines and all the things that they learned about the various aspects of of getting art to print.

 

 

 

First we talked with a couple of the computer designers. They showed us some of the kinds of jobs that they do. Then the kids designed personal calendars for 2012.

 

 

Below they are standing in front of the palette of paper that will be used to complete jobs today.

Even though there is a machine that does the shrink wrapping on a large scale, the kids enjoyed watching it happen around the envelope we brought with us.

 

 

 

The glue they use to put books together looks a lot like gum. (No one was tempted to try it out, thank heaven. )

 

 

 

 

We were all amazed at the hugeness of everything. There were printers that were 7 feet tall and 20 feet wide. They watched all three of their calendars get hole punched at once and talked about that amazing hole puncher, among other things, the rest of the day.

We went to the conference room and designed a poster with the lake pictures that they brought with them.

 

 

     

Last of all, we watched it coming through the printer.

 

 

 

The lake pictures--

egg art day

With Easter this weekend, of course, we had to have an egg art day. Actually, it started yesterday. Can I just say how APPALLED, the kids were, and then Shocked when they found out we were going to cut apart Papa’s ties.

But Papa joined us and assured them that these ties were okay to use. He used a small drill bit and bored holes into each end of the eggs. The boys especially loved squirting air into those holes and dislodging the insides, totally enjoying disgusting sliminess of it all.

Then we wrapped the eggs in the tie fabrics.

Today we prepared to leave the house early.

We went to the Spanish Sugar Mill for a pancake breakfast at DeLeon Springs.    

 

 

After breakfast we set up our grill with sterno and began boiling water for our eggs.

 

 

 

 

 

There was plenty to do while we waited for the eggs to process.    

Not sure what this is, but we have seen it everyday—multiple times.

1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a 5 and a 6 and a 7 and a 8 and a 9 and a 10. Whoa!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

The kids each picked their favorite egg to show and leftover bits from the tie it came from: