Grandma's Visit: Week 2

The second week of Liz's visit saw us sticking around closer to home.  On Monday night we went down to our community garden plot and fenced it off.  (These are the wild kind of adventures we treat visitors to around here.)

Sean and Grandma kept the workers in line, and made sure they got the fencing straight. 

     The rest of the week was either really rainy, or really hot, so we did a lot of indoor activities.  Asher really likes playing Scrabble, which is also Liz's game of choice.  Here we have a rare occurrence... Liz getting beat.

    Below is a shot of the official score card...279 to 263.  Beating Grandma at Scrabble is a major accomplishment in ones life. He will probably put it on his job resumes in the future.

    Mattias wanted to challenge Grandma, but found he still has a ways to go before reaching champion Scrabble player status.  They still had fun though.

     Sylvia showed Liz the library down on Main Street (which is conveniently located next to the bakery).  Liz was wonderful and spent lots of time reading library books to Sylvia.

    I had an old faded flower pot in the backyard that could use some sprucing up. One rainy day,  Noel painted the background color, then we traced hands and decorated each persons outline.  It looks great now!

Here is Liz's realistic hand...

Noel went for more of a rainbow hand look..

 Sylvia went for a colorful flower on the back of her hand, and learned how drippy paint can be.

Then, Sylvia did a good job realistically painting our dog Maya's paw on some leftover space.  Our dog was not much interested in decorating her own paw, luckily Sylvia didn't mind.

 We also introduced Liz to "Fancy Nancy".   She read a couple of the Nancy books from the libary to Sylvia, and did a Fancy Nancy sparkle-puzzle with her.  What more could a person hope to gain from a vacation?

 On her last afternoon in town, Liz took us all out to lunch at a tasty Chinese-American buffet.  Noel had all vegtables, and Asher had all meat... they reminded me of the nursery rhyme "Jack Sprat".  Sylvia loaded her plate up with fried cheese balls.   -Very healthy.  We all enjoyed several helpings of really good food.

I took the older kids to their school activities, and left Sylvia in charge of the camera.  She went to Olbrich gardens with Liz and Sean, and took lots of fun pictures.  Here is a shot of Liz and Sean from Sylvia's point of view...

They saw lots of beautiful flowers, and enjoyed meandering along the walkways.

The Thai pavillion is a stunning part of the gardens.

   And when Sylvia got cold, her dad donated his wool sweater to her.  She has a ways to go before it actually fits... but it did the job for the day.

After a final stop at Staples and the Art Museum, Sean and Sylvia delivered grandma to the airport.  It was a fun filled day to finish of a great week.  We really enjoyed having Liz come and stay for an extended period of time.  The kids got to share their interests and activities with her through out the two weeks.  We hope she considers doing such a crazy trip another time. 

Grandma McMullin's visit - Week 1

Sean's mom flew out to visit this week.  We have done a variety of outings, in between rain storms.

Sylvia and her friend appreciate the fact that Grandma is staying in a motel with a pool.  There was much splashing this week.

 Here is Grandma with her two splashing mermaids.

   We also drove to Milwaukee to visit the museums.  Asher really enjoys playing Scrabble, so Grandma showed him some of the tricks of the trade as they drove in the car.  The played on her ipad the whole way. She is the ultimate Scrabble-Master, but Asher aspires someday to win.

  At the Discovery World Science Museum, Sylvia found out her arms are finally long enough to reach into the pools and pet the sturgeons swimming by.  The fish swim in loops, and it is a fun game to see if you can reach in quick enough to stroke their 2 foot long bodies as they cruise by.

Sylvia was also brave enough to try the "bed of nails" experiement.  You lay down on a sheet of plexi-glass, then they raise nails up, so you are totally laying on a bed of nails.  She said it felt "weird".  Sean and I were not brave enough to try it.

Sylvia also enjoyed making lots of silly faces in the hundreds of mirrors at one exhibit.  It was fun to see what she gravitated towards.

   The museum was full  of crazy public school kids on field trips, so lunchtime was looking to be more of the same loud chaos we had been trying to steer clear of all morning.  Liz discovered the top floor of the aquarium, the banquet room.  We asked the museum director for permission to haul our cooler up the elevator and eat there.  It was very posh, and quiet.  We ate our bagels and pudding cups surrounded by unexpected elegance.

The view was very pretty from the banquet room. You could see downtown Milwaukee and out across lake Michigan.   It had a wrap around balcony that you had to be careful not to get blown off.

In the afternoon we stopped at the Milwaukee Public Museum.  The butterfly exhibit is one of Sylvia's all time favorite places.   Liz had a butterfly that stayed on her shoulder most of the time.

Asher was fabulous with helping Sylvia catch and hold some of the butterflies.

Mattias won the prize for attracting the largest butterfly of the afternoon.

Noel has been getting a lot of driving practice in.  She is almost finished with her 50 hours, and will be taking her driving test next month.  She is looks very grown up sitting in a car for some reason.

    
     Finishing out the week, we journeyed a half hour down to Evansville, WI.  The high school there put on the musical "The Wizard of Oz" this weekend.  Since they don't have a strings program, they borrowed some of Stoughton's orchestra students.  Asher has been going with some friends down to practice in the evenings after tennis practice for the last two weeks.   The music was great, the show was amazing.

Not only did he meet other musicians from Evansville, but he made friends with the actors as well.  Here is Asher with the star of the show, Dorothy.   Although, Sylvia thinks the real star of the show was Toto. - Who can argue with that?