Sunday 12 May 2013

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. 

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