What a Wonderful World!

We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm, and adventure.  There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.

- Jawaharlal Nehru

Week 16: Wonderful

When I have the opportunity to spend time with my grandchildren (and their parents, of course), it is easy to find wonder every day.  My most difficult task in making this week's page was choosing which photos to use!  And then I came home to find several long-term projects done or almost done, just in time for spring company coming.  It was a wonderful week!

My son David loved to 'mow' the grass with his fleet of plastic lawn mowers when he was a toddler.  We had a bubble mower (expensive) and multiple versions of a less than $5 plastic mower, and most any day, no matter the weather, he could be found out in the yard, pushing a mower back and forth across the lawn.  When he tired of mowing, he'd hop on his teeter totter and SWING, usually yelling or singing at the top of his lungs.  When teetering grew old, he'd climb in the sandbox and push his trucks around for a while.  Then back to the mowers, and he'd start again.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.  Dave's son Gray is always on the go, too.  If he's not riding his Jeep (sit on, push with feet) around the house, he loves to be outside.  This week, his mom brought home a big plastic dump truck and about a dozen rocks.  Boy heaven!  He and I played with that dump truck and those rocks for hours.  Gray would load up the truck with rocks and push it to a different location in the yard.  I had the easy job - I got to build 'houses' with the rocks, then Gray would knock them down, load up the truck, and push it somewhere else, where we would repeat the process.  Every now and then I could get Gray to stack some rocks, but he was much more interested in knocking my creations down.  While we were playing, I met Gray's new neighbors, who just happened to have a son the same age as Gray, and who just happens to love rocks and dump trucks.  I made a mental note to grab another dump truck on my next trip to Target!

We made the happy discovery that Gray could even sit in the back of the dump truck and ride it down the hill, and when Elliot got home from school, she had to have a try at that, too.  Believe it or not, she could ride it down the hill, too!  It was fun to watch Gray and Elliot play with the rocks and truck together - they built a road and then parked the truck.  I did get another truck later in the week, and it was so worth it to see the expression on Gray's face when he saw that he had TWO trucks!!  We may be needing a few more rocks!

At Christmas last year, we took Elliot and Gray to Theatre Under the Stars in Houston to see Sleeping Beauty and her Winter Knight, and they were so enthralled with the live performance than I agreed to take the two of them to Durham to see PJ Masks Live at the Durham Performing Arts Center.  In case you don't have preschoolers or grandkids who are that age, PJ Masks is a kids' cartoon about three crime-fighting kids and the villains they battle at night.  No parents or adults involved in this show! Our seats were up in the balcony (lots of stairs, but Gray was a trouper!) and it was sort of hard to hear the characters, but the kids seemed to enjoy it.  Gray sat on my lap the whole time and Elliot did for about half the time.  It wasn't my favorite show, but it was fun watching them enjoy it, and I love it that they are being introduced to live theater.

Now that Elliot is in school, I don't get to see her as much as I do Gray, but I am looking forward to having her come visit us during her year-round school breaks.  She and I spend time coloring (hearts, flowers, and snowflakes are our specialties) and writing or playing with her dolls.  If you don't believe in gender differences, just play with a couple of kids of opposite sexes.  Not to be stereotypical, but in my experience, boys are BUSY and girls tend to amuse themselves happily in one place for long periods of time.  And girls are generally quiet about it...  I love them both and am blessed to have had opportunities to experience both boys and girls as kids and grandkids.  I am so grateful for time spent with these precious little souls!

Back home in Texas, it's almost our second season, which would be summer.  For those of you not familiar with the climate here, our other season is 'not summer'.  Rex and I did some work around the house this weekend, getting it ready for incoming friends.  We had had a slip-free epoxy covering applied to the concrete in our downstairs outdoor area at the end of the year, and we've been waiting for the perfect time (not windy, not raining, and over 50 degrees for at least three days in a row) to complete the upstairs decks and those days finally came last week.  Hooray!  So we now have a 'Tiki Turquoise' deck (I got to pick the 'flake' colors, and now that's what my custom mix is called) and it looks fantastic with our new house color and our outdoor furniture.  Also last week, our boat dock was repaired and replaced after the damage it sustained in Hurricane Harvey and a couple of previous storms.  Yay!  And, wonder of wonders, the custom-made mailbox that I ordered last SEPTEMBER arrived while I was away, so Rex and I got it put together and installed.  We have been officially Tiki-fied (well, almost - we still don't own a golf cart!) now that we have an appropriately beachy flamingo mailbox.

Yes, life is good here.  If you are stuck someplace that it is still cold or even snowing, God forbid, you know where to come.  We love company!  I can't wait to have some of my p2P friends down this weekend, and then our Paducah friends Judy and Randy here the next.  Bring on the sunshine!

Have a WONDERFUL week!

Jan

Book Report:  I am laughing out loud at the book I'm reading this week!  It's called The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson.  I describe it as Forrest Gump meets A Man Called Ove, and it is hysterical.  I finished Flora, by Gail Godwin, but hated the ending.  Happy reading - please share your favorites with me!