Day 12 of William's visit

Wednesday 6/28 - When we bring the twins to this camp, there are at least 5 minutes we usually wait. That wall is just too tempting to not be climbed on.

This day we had a better plan than wait again for Maymont to open in an hour. We drove to the James River North Bank Park. There is a trail head for a really nice walk. James trained me for the Camino there. 

It was in the shade almost the whole way which made it even nicer. 

Passing two graveyards. The Hollywood Cemetary has many of the USA presidents but we didn't visit today. 

Just a little pause. 

We were not quite sure in the beginning how much and where we would walk but halfway through we had a good idea: we walk as much as we want and then we call an Uber to bring us back to the car. No worries how far to walk and getting too tired.

We went into a restaurant with only a few tables and an old Greek owner for something to drink. And then outside we waited for an Uber. He was a chatty driver and a good experience. 

The park is in a caldesac and we asked him to stop at the corner before because we could walk the rest. There is our car waiting.

Lunchtime by now. Omi didn't feel like cooking. We have a new Panera and needed to investigate it. Mmhh, not as nice as the place it relocated from but the location is better for us. The food was nice but not that impressed with it for the money. A bit of a luxery but since I had a Mother's Day Gift with me it was a nice lunch.

At 3pm we picked the twins up again and since their brother had been treated for ice cream the day before we treated them today. Sweet Frog is a favorite. 

Sarah had invited us for dinner. And then we took the twins with us for a sleepover. Unfortunately there was not much time to play but they still had fun. While Colin and Owen were getting ready in the bathroom I asked William to select a short story in one of the books. He found the perfect one and the way he read it was fun. 

The guestroom has a queen size bed but when Helen came for the weekend William moved to the fold-away. He never moved back over so the twins could use it.

Everybody was settling down and had a good night. Unfortunately at one point one of the firealarms malfunctioned and alarm sounded. And it was the one right in front of the upstairs guestroom. I woke James up and dashed up but William woke up too. James disarmed the firealarm and of course made sure there was really nothing wrong. Luckily everybody could continue sleeping.

This was a surprise we didn't need. But at least all is well. And it was a great day. 

Day 11 of William's Visit

Tuesday 6/27 - All 3 of us went to Sarah's workplace to pick the twins up and bring them to their camp at Maymont. We had planned to drop them off at 9 and then enjoy walking around there. Unfortunately we found out that the garden/park doesn't open until 10am. There are several entrances so we walked around a bit because it was also very nice there to find the main-entrance ...

... but of course it was the same there: opening at 10 am.

It was getting hot so we decided to postpone Maymont til the next day. William wanted to see the Fine Arts Museum.

William had the lead to walk whichever halls he wanted to walk into. We more or less just followed. There is so much to see.

You can never see everything at one visit but we all enjoyed it ... until we had "information overload".

Outside, William straight went to see a statue and while James and I found chairs in the shade for a moment.

We decided that it was just still too long til 3 pm pick-up so went home, chilled a little, had lunch, probably played some cards etc etc.

We went a little earlier back to Maymont but the Nature Center were the twins were was not as close to the Children's Farm as I thought. James and William went up the hill while I went slowly back to be there at pick-up at the right time.

Papa took some photos and shared them with me. 

Did I mention that the camp was called "That's Gross"? It was already 3pm but most children were still very much working with tweezers to pull apart a ball which an owl had brought up ... feathers, sculls, claws etc. Everybody had one to work on. We took the unfinished work home. Surely Mommy has some tweezers.

Caleb is not home from his camp but William, Colin and Owen had a great time playing soccer and later baseball.

The next two are screenshots from videos I took. I took at least a half a dozen which have very nice moments in it but with sport there always is a lot of waiting so I probably need to do some cutting and pasting (in a spare moment) before something is presentable.

When Wade arrived we made our way home. Another full day!

Day 10 of William's visit

First thing: I remembered what we had to do Sunday afternoon. My fitbit was driving me crazy lately. It was not holding charges, I could not sync it which means I had no idea whether I was doing at least a bit decent of getting some exercise. But mostly it gave me totally wrong time of the day. What is the time? So we went out to get a new one for me. James insisted. I guess he doesn't like a wife which goes crazy.

Monday - He seemed to have caught the cold which was going around. Sarah decided that we need a break and made other arrangements for her children to be taken to their scheduled camps and fetched later. The weather was really very nice early in the morning so James, William and I decided it was perfect to go for a nice walk. Richmond has many beautiful green zones and parks. We decided on Deep Run Park because it is quite near. This is about 9:30 am when William tiptoed to get closer to an inquisitive squirrel. 

We had no map and just meandered around what looked nice ... looking at this and that.

This insect habitat was designed and built as an Eagle scout project. Very nice.

Mostly there were paved paths but we also wanted to go "real forest paths". 

When it was time to find the car we did use the GPS. Why not?

It was just before noon so we wanted to treat William to his favorite: all you can eat sushi! James and I had never been to the "Sushi King" and didn't quite know how it works. The service was very slow. Next time we would know better. William can eat easily 4 of those rolls but he did give up after that. Otherwise he probably would have asked for another. But I had shared my Edamame while we were waiting. May be that helped.

Just some photos from home. My rose of sharon looks this year the best it ever has. It is actually on the other side of the fence.

William often asks what he could help with and mostly I don't know. But now he askes whether he could do the blowing of the tree bits when he thinks it needs it. Something we could get used too.

One of my hydrangeas is blooming nicely. The other one is a dud for the second year. 

And yes, he does like playing Five Crowns with us. Omi is still not good with selfies.

 A nice day. Thank the Lord.