Baby Day

"Today's the day!!"
With Daddy and Mommy heading off to the birthing center at daybreak, Ada awoke to find...Mimi and Pa! It was very disappointing, until Mimi introduced the morning "treat".
After that, the normal routine resumed, with laying around and practicing the "Queen's Wave."

Some time was spent in Mommy and Daddy's bed, a comforting thing to do.

Then came a healthy breakfast of Shreddies, strawberries and grapes. It was good to have Beagle nearby.

Playtime included building towers. (Ada may be headed towards a civil engineering career!)

Later, we all strolled to town for more ham. This is the 'laid back/drag feet' style of stroller riding.

At last - the time came! Mommy and Daddy came home. Oh, and there was a baby, too... Baby brother came bearing gifts!

Ada loves unwrapping gifts.

Baby brought Ada a new puppy to add to her collection. After a little while, she lovingly offered to let Baby hold it - a very sweet Big Sister thing to do.

Sunday Outings

Mark, Ada and Pa visited the Clevedon Pier. While we were there, we checked out Pocket's (Ada's newest cousin) commemorative plaque.

We found it, thanks to location data provided by Grandmother Nanny (who donated the plaque).

We also checked out Ada's and Nanny's plaques. They both were in good shape.

In the afternoon, we rode bicycles to a park recently discovered by Ada and her Mom. It had a perfect kid-sized swing.

Puxton Park

We spent a morning at Puxton Park, a nearby children's activity place built on a farm. The first event was playing in the indoor area, including a great slide and climbing cage.

Next up was the giant bouncy bubble thingy.

There were lots of animals to see and interact with. Ada made friends with a baby ostrich, walking back and forth along the fence together.

Ada and Dad rode in the electric powered pig cart - fairly low-level excitement!

There were a pair of Zebu's (ancestors of the Brahma cattle in Texas?)...

...and reindeer.

Across The Pond

A couple of days after we arrived, we felt like an outing to the Cadbury Garden Center - one of our favorite hangouts. (Ada was wondering why Pa wasn't keeping up.)

Ceiling Ninja - Update

Holding on by one hand now... may not be able to hang on much longer!

Mini-Grandcamp

The first priority was Naomi's pre-birthday treasure hunt.

The clues this time were all written out (in very clever verse...  :)
She was able to read them all.

Easy clues.

Some a little harder.

Finally, the Treasure!

Next,we went outside. Naomi had a lesson in 'backing a trailer' (for which she actually used the wagon.) It will take another lesson or two before she is ready for a big rig.

Guess who loves potato chips?

We had some wagon rides down the hill. Naomi is becoming quite an accomplished pilot. No mishaps!

There was a thunderstorm, so we went inside. The power went off for about 20 minutes, which called for finding our way with flashlights (after closing all the curtains to make it really dark.)

It was Danielle's turn for a treasure hunt. This time there were drawings on the clue cards.

She found most of them by herself.

Trying out the 'cool patch'.

After the storm was over, we played in the garage. Naomi made a fortune-telling game.

The fortunes had to be hung on the clothesline. Safe climbing techniques were used.

Danielle tried out the round swing seats we made at a previouse grandcamp, but never got to use.

Thanks for spending time with us, Danielle and Naomi!

Treasure

We're having a short Grandcamp today and tomorrow. Since the girls seem to enjoy treasure hunts, we put this one together.

Ceiling Ninja Alert!!

The temperature has been approaching 100 degrees the past few days.
Today we noticed that our ceiling Ninja, which John and Christopher set up last Christmas, is losing his grip.

We hope he can hang on, but it's not looking good!

Inflation By Another Scheme

While prearing a new tuna can for measuring the amount of watering on the yard, I noticed a bit of difference between it and the one from a couple of years ago.

The old one was in the days of 6 oz. tuna; today's is 5 oz.
That's how we do "price dropping"!!

Signs of Technology

Outside

Since it has gotten hot, and we are about to leave on a trip, we decided to remodel our landscape.
Right now.
We roto-tilled and mulched half the front yard. The shade from the oak tree had pretty much killed off the grass. We think mulch is nicer than dirt.

We also tilled the back yard. And since we are tired of our dirt washing down the hill every time it rains hard, we built a little retaining wall across the back.

A couple of nights ago, there was a beautiful full moon.

Mena to Clemson Ride and Visit

On my way from Mena to Clemson, I went through Huntsville, Alabama. NASA has a lot of stuff there, including a full stack Apollo/Saturn 5 vehicle.

Mentone has a nice art gallery/cafe.

They made a delicious veggie omelette.

When I arrived in Clemson, Julie and the boys surprised me with a cake. (Apparently, someone had a birthday.)

The boys always enjoy climbing on the 'spider web' at Clemson City Park. We found a geocache, too.

We found another cache at ?? Park. There was a lot of climbing and leaping, too.

We got to meet Kerri for lunch, and she gave us a VIP tour of her lab. The showpiece is a 'cell printer', used in their biology research lab.

I got to enjoy walking with Fly. Most of the time, he enjoyed going. But occasionally, he would decide he didn't want to.

Fly really enjoyed getting food pellets from his treat ball.

Thanks for a great visit, Julie & Tony & John & Christopher and Fly!

(I didn't take any photos on the ride home.)