The Last Day at Chautauqua

Grampa helped deliver and pick up Kevin from his program today. When I picked him up this afternoon, I can't believe that neither of us thought to say final goodbyes to his counselors until we were too far away to return! He loved Chautauqua's children's program and wants to come again! Me too!

On the way walking back to the condo, I showed Kevin the huge truck and bus that brought The Oak Ridge Boys.

Then we stopped at Bestor Plaza to listen to a unique percussion group. They reminded me of Stomp, except they were using real percussion instruments.

And he had to play with the fountain one more time.

I have wondered about the appropriateness of allowing him to play on the fountain. This morning I attended the Morning Devotional Hour which included "Litany at the End of a Chautauqua Week" -- a responsive reading with congregation saying "We have seen you," at the end of each line.

Creator God, we give you thanks for Miller and Vincent's vision for this sacred grove.
Under century old trees shading gingerbread cottages, we have seen you.
In children playing in our fountains, we have seen you.
[and on and on it goes, with more than a dozen more illustrations of seeing God at Chautauqua.]

Grandma was looking forward to Grampa helping Kevin with his bike riding.

But Kevin refused to cooperate with Grampa. Fiasco. :\ We put the bike in the car to take back to the rental shop. Grampa offered him a reprieve -- that he could do some more riding around the store before turning it in. That went well. But then big tears as we left -- all because he LOVED the dog paw prints on the bike seat! I had never even noticed them. Well, I saw them but took no note of it!

Kevin has been wanting to comb his own hair while he has been with me. This is new! And he wants to part it -- like his Mommy always combed his hair. So I have been working with him on combing the back as well as the front. It is interesting how he is developing an interest in how his hair looks!


Friday nights' Amp programs are intended for the local residents to come enjoy Chautauqua with popular shows. Tonight was The Oak Ridge Boys. Grant was looking forward to it. I was not interested at all. Since Steve has been "into" country music for the past 18 months, Kevin has been indoctrinated, so I thought he might like them. Grant wanted us to be there an hour early to have a decent seat. Kevin's legs were too tired to make the trek across the campus again.

Almost every night while people are making their way to the Amp, young people (sometimes young children) are playing their instruments with their instrument case open for receiving money. Kevin is always intrigued with them. Tonight he sat down on the curb to listen to this brass ensemble and asked me for money for their case.


With the first cord, I knew The Boys would be an endurance test for me. It wasn't long before Kevin was not enjoying it either. It started to rain, so Kevin and I decided to leave before the weather was worse taking the only umbrella we carried tonight. About half way home, a deluge began with thunder and lightening. I taught Kevin how to know how far away the lightening was. The closest was 2 miles, but I prayed all the way home. As soon as we were safe inside, the lightening and thunder were simultaneous all around us, then the lights went out for less than a minute. We made it just in time! However, I forgot to turn my phone back on and to call Grant to tell him we were OK. He was worried since I didn't answer, so he left in the drenching rain with no umbrella. Poor guy! Turns out, Grampa didn't enjoy the music as much as he thought he would.