I had a crazy time over the weekend. On Thursday I went to Buck’s to catch Scotty’s last ball game of the season. I took Carver and Gannon with me. The plan was to watch the game, pick up Scotty and then bring him back to my house. It was supposed to be a weekend with the big boy grandsons…it morphed into a little more.
So we didn’t get back until late…past 10 pm on Thursday night. Carver, Scotty, and Gannon all stayed overnight.
Kelli had talked about wanting to take her kids somewhere over the summer and I suggested I take the boys and meet her at the Nature Center near Elkader, Iowa. It was about an hour drive for me…a half-hour for Kelli and Kayla and Jasper joined us too. It was a little over an hour’s drive for them.
We went to the cross stitch shop in town first…but I’ll tell you about that later in the week.
The kids weren’t in the mood for pictures…I tried. This is Georgie, Scotty and Carver.
Here is Kelli with Eli and Emmett. By far, the boys were the best behaved of the bunch.
At Osborn Nature Center they had a replica of an old town complete with a caboose. The boys jumped on and let me take their pictures.
Jasper needed a little help navigating the stairs so Kayla hopped on with him.
I couldn’t decide which picture I liked better so I included this one too…
The animals that are there were somehow injured and not able to be released into the wild. There was a raccoon.
They have a bear and Gannon was not excited to see it all. In fact, I had talked about the bear before we left and he decided that he wasn’t going to get in the car and go because he knew he would be afraid of it.
I had to do some fancy talking to get him to go and then once there we had to continually point out that every animal was in a cage and couldn’t get out.
They were hosing off the bear to cool him down when we were there.
This was the red-tailed hawk.
Here is the barred owl.
The kids loved checking out the bald eagle.
They had a wolf too.
There was a cute little play area.
I tried to get the kids together for a picture…it wasn’t happening.
I took eight pictures and every single one was some version of what you see in these two pictures.
There is a building with interesting exhibits but we quickly realized that these kiddos just didn’t have the maturity for that.
In the end, after the long morning, I don’t know who was more pooped…me, Kelli, Kayla, or the kids. I look forward to trying this again sometime in the future…like 5 years from now.
That is 7 of the 9 grandkids. Lucy and Lilly were at their house…
After the nature center, we all parted ways. I took the boys back home and they had a fabulous time playing with the hose. Saturday we picked up meat from the locker and delivered it to Kelli’s house and Kalissa’s house. Kalissa and Craig took Scotty, Carver, and Gannon to fireworks on Saturday night. I stayed home. Sunday Buck came and picked up Scotty…and I had Kelli’s kiddos here because she needed childcare. By Sunday night I was ready for some downtime. I was so pooped I didn’t even fix supper. I sat down on the couch and cross-stitched.
It was a fun weekend but a long weekend…and now, I have a few days off with no kids. I love having the kids but I also love some downtime with no kids too.
I’m hoping I can get Lucy and Georgie, the “big girl grandkids” sometime this summer too. Happily, that will be much more relaxing. Those boys have a ton of energy…or maybe this grandma is just getting old.
oh yes boys definitely require a higher and different level of energy. it sounds like you managed pretty well. sometimes it seems they conspire to see how many different directions they can be at the same time.
I always it is so wonderful how you manage to get the grandkids together so they have cousin time. It is hard work, but so worth it. Most any of us grandmas/Nanas relate to how we love having the kiddos, but give a sigh of relief when they go home. God knew what he was doing when he designed families – have kiddos when young!
Don’t get rid of the mishap pictures because it shows clearly how children are, they aren’t perfect poses, but it shows your grandchildren the way they were. They are cute little children and boys can be frisky. Now time for you.
I’m with you on loving time with the grands, and having downtime after. I had my almost 2 year old granddaughter for 2 all dayers and the overnight in between while her baby brother was being born. I was so relieved that she didn’t cry for her daddy at all, but boy oh boy was I drained lol
I know how you feel, we just came back from two weeks at the NJ shore in a small cottage with our daughter, son in law and 2 granddaughters 2 & 7. You have no space to separate in the cottage, it is all one level with 3 small bedrooms and an open living area and kitchen. My son in law was working from the cottage. I was at the beach daily running after one of the children with my daughter. They are up at 5 am and I am a night owl. I am ready for a real vacation after the two weeks of chasing kids and cooking. I love them to pieces, but it is not as easy as it was when my children were young now that I am 71.
Sounds like a busy time indeed!! Love that you get the time to love on those grandchildren. Precious pictures indeed!
Sounds like a fun busy time. Wish hi had the energy I had as a little kid. I’m glad you has a special weekend with the big boy grands
Boys are full of energy all the time I think more so nowadays than when my son was the same age as my grandson is now. My granddaughters have energy also yet not an excessive amount of it even when they were younger girls. Glad you had a good time over the weekend, Jo. Sometimes outings we plan just don’t turn out how we’ve envisioned it. Maybe repeat the same outing in 3 years, it’ll be a lot better experience then more than likely.
The BEST pictures!
Loved the pictures! Brings back great memories of when my kids and grandkids were little.