Day One of Summer Vacation

Vacation has finally started. Sometimes you just get lucky and get to start off with grandchildren on day one. Being a teacher I am against letting the kids sit in front of the television watching their brains turn to jello when there are a ton of things to do here that they can not do elsewhere. So we are scheduling activities.

Ideas are welcome.

Our day started pretty early. Now as I look back on my day I think it started at 6:30 with Eric at my bedside telling me to wake up. Most mornings I am up between 5:00 and 5:30 but since the gramdkids are here, Caleb and Gaby were here visiting and some of us sat up talking to really, really late.

I would have gone on to bed but I had 20 pages left to finish off "The Help" and had to get it done. I was nearing the end when I heard one of the grandsons yell out and then moments later Joel was standing next to me in the living room. He asked me where Eric was and said something about how he was standing in the middle of the room and something... something... He snuggled up next to me and then in a minute got up and left to go back to bed. I have seen it before in all of the males in our family. I recognize sleep walking when I see it. Once I knew he was settled back in his bed I wasted no time in getting myself to bed and that was the last I knew until I heard Eric calling my name. How did that time pass so quickly?

So that was the start of my first week on vacation.

The first activity for the day once all the meds, and the mandatory coffee had been taken was to feed the baby calf. Poor little guy, his mother rejected him and he is bottle fed. So this is a morning and evening activity for the week.

Then a "quick" trip to Walmart took place to buy all the reinforcements for the week. It ended up lasting all morning because we had to split our trip to meet Papa at the nursery where he picked up the compost and gardening soil I needed for our evening activity.

Lunch was simple.

Then our big project for the day: making the candy sundae.

Starting with a plastic glass, a Styrofoam disc, a 3 lb bag of hard candies, a white silk carnation,
a red tootsie roll pop,
a little crinkly paper
a bunch of straight pins
and a little bit of time in the middle of a hot afternoon
will produce something as deliciously delightful for both the little ones and the big ones. Joel was really pleased with the finished product and once I jumped in to help him it took us about an hour.

Then on to more fun stuff but nothing was sweeter the rest of he day.

We did a quick trip down our Royal hill to Grandmama and Granddaddy's house for coffee and conversation.
By the time we returned home the long shadows were beginning to cover our new flowerbed we were going to plant. Once it was all planted and we stood back and looked we were satisfied.



A quick cool down for the kids and the plants. A little time in the hot tub previously set to the summer temperatures a bit cooler for us and a little time on bicycles and the day was nearly over.


Supper was simple.
And before baths and bed we made photo cubes with the pictures of the days activities.
And sleep came easily.