Mimi and I made a weekend trip to Dallas to see John and Taylor. We also saw Jason and Ashley, and stayed with Diane and Richard. But it really is all about the grandkids!
I went with John and Ashley to John's swimming lesson. He does great, goes under water when he has to, and is learning to reach for the side and climb out.
Taylor likes wearing John's football helmet. I guess she won't need a cheerleading outfit, just pads and cleats!
The kids warmed up to Mimi, Taylor sat in her lap while we waited for a table at Spoon's Cafe in McKinney.
John showed Mimi a few of his dinosaurs, and helped her identify them from the pictures in a dinosaur book.
Have you ever seen such a collection of wheeled vehicles?
Taylor shows Mimi how a rabbit hops, then she notes the new color on my toes after a pedicure. I let John tell me what color I should get. First he wanted orange, but I said that would have to wait til Halloween. I gave him a choice of blue, green or purple. He opted for purple, the color of Ramon's car on Cars Movie.
Taylor is telling Mimi something very important, and almost intelligible!
Jason practiced throwing and catching with John. He actually caught the ball 4 times, and his throwing is pretty good.
A picture sent by Ashley of John playing soccer.
Another phone photo of John and Taylor being cool kids. Note Tayor has her pink cell phone tucked away in her "pocket".
A fun weekend for me, I even got to babysit the kids Saturday night, and they were terrific.
Back in the day, way back, summer meant no school, summer vacation, bike riding, pool lazing, softball games. Even less way back in the day, summer still meant no school for teachers, time off with the kids, vacations, pool lazing and just plain relaxing and enjoying not having to go to work. More recently back in the day, although I still had to work during the summer, it was a more relaxed work atmosphere with schools being closed and 3 day weekends. Since retirement, summer has less significance in terms of work and school. HOWEVER, since kids are out of school and teachers are off work, there are LOTS more folks out and about during the week, more traffic, malls and movie theaters more crowded, pools of course, and even grocery stores are more crowded during the day. So I am content to stay out of the heat, enjoy my backyard pool, and do any shopping as early as possible.
Summer is also bringing the twins to see JanMa and enjoy her pool on weekends. Here is a video of Jake and Claire as they are learning to swim. They love being in the pool.
Jake got his first haircut. His hair is very blond, and still thin, but it had gotten long and wispy. Here is a picture Jennifer sent right after the first haircut. He has his lion for comfort, lion goes everywhere Jake goes, and you better keep up with it!
The twins also have "balance bikes". I never heard of these things, but I know Jeremy learned how to ride a bike at a very young age because he could sit on the seat and his feet reached the ground. It was a very small bike. Once he got comfortable scooting it around, he put his feet on the pedals and off he went. So Jason got the same experience, but he moved to a larger bike much sooner, with no training wheels, and managed just fine. So I think the small balance bike is a good idea, and we'll see how the twins do.
I've been getting update pictures of John and Taylor. Both have new beds, that light up underneath, and John loves his. I'm sure Taylor does too, but I haven't discussed this with her yet!
Taylor laying in her bed.
John's new bed with new dresser.
Also, here are some cute pictures of Taylor sent by Jason.
And here is John in his new soccer cleats, getting ready for his first season! I'm going to visit with Mimi next weekend, and I'll get to watch him at swimming lessons and we'll play soccer in the back yard.
Here is Bill, visiting with grandson William. William gets so excited when he sees PaPa.
Bill moved his plane to a new hanger, a much cleaner one with painted lines out front that make it easy to push the plane back in.
We flew it early one morning to test out the repaired starter, it started great! After the jaunt around Lake Conroe, we watched a seaplane do some touch and gos from the water runway.
Finally, I also spent a long weekend at the lake with the girls. We had a great time eating, drinking and lounging around the lake.
There was also a LOT of reading going on, a currently popular book with shades in the title was available in paperback, on a kindle and 2 ipads!!!
