Camelot

This morning, was Grandma's early morning Rotary meeting and Grampa stayed home to babysit. Then Grandma had to run to the doctor's office to hear about the results of a test which made us miss having a nice lunch in the quaint town of Stratford, the home of Ontario's Shakespearean Festival. We spent our car time productively by having Kevin read some books to us! Grampa took a strange route to get there, arriving just 10 minutes before show time!

I was looking forward to Camelot, as I LOVED Camelot in by-gone days, but I had forgotten the basic plot which is not one for little kids! It is a clusterfuck (I also love that new word to my vocabulary!)! However, kids only absorb what they can understand, and the sins of the story flew over Kevin's head. Thank goodness! The music is so great that who cannot love it?

At intermission, we had drinks on the terrace. Buglers come out when it is time to return for the second half of the performance. Kevin was able to see them up close!

It was a very long, though excellent, performance. Kevin's attention never waned, unlike his grandparents who both caught a couple of winks! As soon as it was over, Kevin asked if we could see it again!

We went to The Church, a fabulous restaurant, for dinner. Kevin was intrigued by eating in a church. We ordered frites on the appetizer menu for Kevin while we had vichyssoise. I ordered a Cornish hen dinner, expecting plenty of meat to share with the boy. Instead of a full hen, I received a portion of the tiny hen. ha! We still had plenty to eat.

The boy was in need of exercise as we left the restaurant and found a way to let off some steam by rolling down the hill in front of The Church.

From Star Wars to Ice Skating

We finished watching the first movie of Star Wars this morning. Kevin wasn't sure he wanted to watch it last night, but, once it was on, he was glued to it!

Melanie and Sophie joined us at doggie park again this morning. This time, she caught a shot of Kevin as he played Tarzan on the spruce branch as I prevented the lower branch from hitting him as it sprung upward.

The greatest excitement of the day was to go ice skating with Grandma and Melanie! The ice arena has "walkers" for children to use as they learn to skate. They are a wonderful crutch to help kids learn to stand up and begin to move on skates.



Learning to glide is a difficult thing as the natural tendency is to try to walk. Kevin ended up flat on the ice many times. Usually in good humor!

I worried about his sometimes short frustration level, but he only had a few moments of frustration. Melanie was indispensable in helping him!!!


We skated for for nearly 1.5 hours. By the end he was venturing out on the ice without the walker.

Another friend who coaches 7 year old hockey teams gave Kevin some pointers -- like looking straight ahead instead of at his feet. He felt Kevin was doing very well for his first time on skates.

A Great Summer Day!

Today was a lovely, warm day (in the high 70s) -- finally! Kevin helped me deadhead flowers in the garden, weed, and he set out the grandchildren stones plus the stones he painted for my garden last year.

My tree-climbing monkey walked up the Mountain Ash tree to the branches.

He is always ready to pose!


After his hard work, it was time to play in the water.

And more cooling off with an ice cream cookie sandwich.

Grandma bought him an electric bubble maker.

Kevin likes the new angel Grampa selected for our garden representing our Angel Karin. He wrote, "I love this :) --->" with "this" spelled phonetically as "zis" in tiny letters.

Creative, attractive chalk drawings now grace the wall around the patio!

He found a friendly snail! He was not afraid at all, as he did not hide in his shell.

He crawled right into Kevin's hand!

And he didn't stop there! He crawled up his chest!

Kevin created a home for him. But before bed, he opened the lid in case the snail did not want to stay there.

Today is Grandma and Grandpa's 42nd wedding anniversary! I showed him our wedding album.


He was interested in the New Testament which sat on the top of our wedding cake.

I still have it (of course!) and showed it to him. I also have the Bible which my nephew Mark Herne, then 3 years old, carried down the aisle as our Bible bearer. The Bible was the theme of our wedding -- also featured on the cover of our program. Of course, our ceremony was centered on a Christian marriage with Christ as a the third leg of our marriage to keep it steady. I told him the story of what little Mark did! As he walked down the aisle and caught sight of his Mommy, he dropped the Bible and ran to her. On the same shelf with those small Bibles was a small New Testament with colored picture of Jesus with the children on the cover. Mommy Karin received it in her Easter basket in 1977 when she was only 4. I told him he could have it. We found some verses which he could read and Grandma read the Love Chapter to him.

We had dinner on the patio beside the bay at our club.

Two neighbors were there also!

And a friendly seagull kept vigil on the clock.

A Day with Melanie

Kevin slept in until 10am, so we had a really late start to our day! Melanie had the day off and wanted to take her dog, Sophie, to doggie park with us. Kevin loves Sophie and she tolerates him treating her like a horse.

Kevin found a rather large branch and dragged it half way around the field until Grandma made his drop it.

More spruce tree climbing today.

He had to show Melanie his trick he did yesterday of walking out on a limb while holding the limb above, then taking his feet off the lower limb while holding the upper one like Tarzan, and the upper branch dropping down with his weight so that he could easily jump to the ground. No chance for pictures as Grandma had to hold the bottom branch from bopping him as it flew up as the upper branch dropped down.

Melanie stayed to play ball with the boy.

Melanie went to lunch with us at Cora's (a breakfast/lunch restaurant we all love!) and shopping for ice skates, helmet, and ball glove at stores which sell used sports equipment.
She caught these shots of him today:

What was his doing outside the railing of the deck??!!! Good thing Grandma didn't catch this! :-0

She left us to pick up her boys, and we went to the library to sign up for summer reading. Then they met us at the playground behind the library. Baby Elie had a wonderful time sliding down a fast, spiral slide scaring me half to death! While Mommy helped him get started at the top, I watched as he zoomed down, making sure he was OK at the bottom. There was NO second to ever take a picture! He did it over and over again! Brave, thrill-seeking kid!
Teo and Kevin swinging,

and sharing a drink.

Dinner was a little unusual. Grandma style! We went to DQ for a banana split and a strawberry shortcake -- each of which we shared! Then we went home for some cheese. Yum!

Other things we did today: learned more magic tricks, colored the wooden clock puzzle Grandma bought to help teach how to tell time on a clock,

and watched videos borrowed from the church library.
Guinness makes a great playmate! He slept with Kevin last night.


News from Texas today! Jeremy wants to join the Air Force ROTC in high school this year, so he cut his hair short!!! :-0 Handsome dude!

Keeping a Boy Busy

I took this shot at church to email to Mommy and Daddy. Grandma bought Kevin some new sneaker Crocs yesterday!

However, before church was done, a blister had developed on his heel, so he went home barefoot!

While we were at church, Grampa added air to Kevin's bike tires and went shopping for a bat and balls. :) They played catch this afternoon.


In preparing for Kevin's visit, I had pulled out some things from the attic including Mommy's Fisher Price Magic set. He was very excited about learning how to do magic and could NOT wait to begin!!!! He mastered the first couple of tricks and did an impressive show for Grampa!

Guinness needed some exercise, so we took him to doggie park where Kevin LOVES to climb the spruce trees!!!


Grampa grilled our steaks while Grandma prepared the rest. We ate on the deck and needed one more high stool from the basement/garage level. Kevin insisted HE could carry it up 2 flights of steps!!!


I played ball with him after dinner. I was amazed at how well he did for never having experienced catching and batting before. He was able to make contact with the ball 50% of the time.

At bedtime, this was his prayer: "Thank you for a nice day. Thank you for dogs in the family. Thank you for Grandma and Grandpa. Thank you for the nice dinner. Thank you for the magic box. Tell Mommy we love her. Help us to have faith. Thank you for helping me play baseball. Thank you for the egg salad sandwiches I wanted for lunch. Help us to have a good day tomorrow. Amen."

Traveling back to Canada

Saying goodbye to Mommy Kinga.

Daddy dropped us at the airport.

The JetBlue Terminal at JFK is quite remarkable and high tech. Ben and Jerry's is always yummy.

Kevin enjoyed having audio to go with the video choices in front of every seat, giving Grandma a chance to nap. :)

Before crossing the border, we shopped for some shoes for Kevin at a large Croc's store. When we arrived home, Grampa had a hot dog supper ready for us.