well, yeah.: April 2018

Monday, April 30, 2018

opening up the cabin

Jay went up on Thursday by himself and got the water on, put the water softener back in place, had the heat on a little bit. Kirsten and her dogs showed up in the afternoon, nice surprise. We had a good time.

The swamp is thawed, and in the evening, the peepers are already starting.

The lake is still covered in a bit of ice, and the breeze across the ice was cold.

Kirsten took this picture, and I love it.

And that's the end of that.

It was a fine Monday, last day of April.

Love, Val

Friday, April 27, 2018

a sleepover

He's out here in the kitchen, eating stale puff corn because Matilda is playing in the family room and Trunchable is making him nervous.

I told him it's pretend. He's still staying out here.

The beds were set up and blankets and pillows passed out to all the excited little sleepover guests.

And now it's the end of the night and they've been asleep for a while now.

I love Fridays, and I love all these big and little kids.

Love, Val

railing!

We had to change our homeowner's insurance last fall, and the new company had concerns about that flat roof with no railing.

Never mind we've lived here for thirty years with ZERO claims of any other than general storm damage a couple times. No claims have ever involved this flat roof.

Nobody has ever fallen off the flat roof. We didn't go out there except to set up and take down the little Santa, or maybe shake out a rug, or clear snow off James' bedroom roof.

Anyway.

I told this to our agent, and also told him that we would do it, but could not create any punctures into the flat roof in the process.

He said, "Oh no, don't do that!"

Yah, exactly.

Anyway it's done.

Storms are anticipated, and wind, over the next few days, but we have a fine gazebo also ready to put up with screens to keep out mosquitoes, and onward.

Jay has named it the Catalpa Lounge, after that Catalpa tree that normally shades this whole mess.

Love, Val

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

a surprise trip to the zoo

p.j. remembered that I took kids to Como on a day she had school and couldn't come with, so today when the question arose around 9 am--what are we doing today?

She asked to go to the zoo. It's free. They accept any donation. It's easy.

Sure.

The outdoor food stand is torn up in construction, but the restaurant was serving waffle fries, so we brought our lunch out to the patio. The little sister said we ate dimmer outside.

They're replanting the wedding garden:

And the old circular structure where seals chirped for fish?

It's all torn up, being remodeled. I mean, it was time. The old one had a lot of vintage 30s charm, but updates are good.

And then we drove home and the little ones slept in the car.

Mondays don't come any better.

Love, Grandma

a fun weekend

While we were waiting for the travelers coming from Florida, we kept busy. Those guys were here getting babysat for a while, pretty excited crowd. We had a great time.

Saturday we went to the mall to see the children's art show. The display was large and impressive. Children did a very nice job on these art projects. I loved it.

Look how adorable:

Then before we left they tried out a couple of the attractions.

These are the life sized ride-on animals:

These were the most absurd thing I've seen in a long time. It cost seven dollars for a fifteen minute ride, but who was timing this and keeping track. Nutty kids were zipping all over the mall on these. I hope they don't normally run anyone over because there were drivers who seemed pretty dicey.

And that's that.

Silly, fun Saturday. Love, MOM aka Grandma

kirby's home

Here they are in Florida, enjoying a little beach time before heading home.

Sunday, an impromptu party emerged. It was a lot of fun. This guy loved his birthday present.

It was this thing, some creature that makes weird noises and so forth. I called him on the phone and pulled the creature's tongue and put the phone near so he could hear it. He was so delighted.