William visit Day 6 and 7

Day 6 - Thursday

A lot of rain was forecast. And our new mattress was supposed to be delivered sometime in the morning. James had an appointment at 9:15am after which he always likes to take care of things like getting gas at Costco and may be also do some shopping since that time is the best with the least crowd. 

James was back a long time before the mattress finally arrived. Of course that also brought with it the stripping of the old one and washing the bedding etc. Oh well ... looking forward to a good sleep.

We were busy though. William did FaceTime with his Mommy which included showing her the bagatelle game. 

I decided I had to take care of the caterpillar/butterfly chrysalis. I put them (carefully!) into clean containers (poop was sure a lot when they are still caterpillars) and found a place where I could put a mesh laundry basket over them. Hoping for the best! 

By the way, my parsley is slowly coming back.

The mattress came in good time and we had time to go out for lunch. Mexican! We sat outdoors in the shade under an overhang and it was lovely.

And yes, then later, the rain came. A nice soaking one very good for the plants and bushes and trees.

We played some games, watched some TV, don't know what else. It was nice.

Day 7 - Friday

About 2 1/2 inches in the raingauge. At least no waterring is necessary. But the sky is blue again and where there is shadow there is sun. 

Of course the first thing William ask (and a lot more times during the day) whether he is going to see his cousins today. Well, I don't know. Not easy with Wade and Sarah both working and their children having camps and things going on here and there. 

William and I took the opportunity of the softer ground to do some weeding and trimming especially the dead flower heads. Very good to have a helper. But in this hot weather you can only do so much. But it does make a difference. 

I remembered we also had to bind this year's book for William. Since first grade I tried to write a letter to him every week. I also print a letter out for me and put it into pagesavers. At the end of each year I bind them into a book with my 'gadgets'. This will be book # 5. 

First you take the letters out of the page savers, counting out 5 we punch holes. 

The front and back pages also had to be laminated before punching the holes. 

Yeah, there it is.

Can't wait any longer. We decided to have the zucchini for lunch. I would have liked to have it become as large as a marrow. William is doing the honors of harvesting. 

Oh what a disappointment. No, didn't have it for lunch. Have to figure out what to do with it. The skin is tough and it is not as soft and watery inside as it should be.

After lunch Papa took William to the science museum. He had talked about it on the first day in the car from Bristol that he remembered it and would like to go and see it again. Today was a good day for it.

And of course he loved it. They were there until it closed. 

I had corresponded at that time with Sarah. They had borrowed one of our cars because one of theirs needed a service. She was home from work and had found out that their car was ready. To get ours back we arranged that we would meet at their ACAC pool (it was free friends day), have pizza and a good time. Oh, everybody had a good time and William loved it. He was first at the slide!

Going to the pool with the boys is much easier because the youngest swim like fishes, jump in, dive to the bottom and get out just like this. Strong arms too.

When it was time to leave the pool we also brought Caleb with us. Sleep over. He had not seen the bagatelle game and loved it. 

Oh oh, it is late. Time to call it a day. I was sitting in the loft waiting for them to be done. I thought this was such a cute photo. Cousins!

Of course we heard them talk in the dark for a while. But not very long because they both were worn out. A good day.

William visit Day 4 and 5

I knew it. I knew it. The time is going fast. 

Day 4 - Tuesday

Sarah is off work today and she wanted to spend time with William. She doesn't see him often enough and of course loves him. But her oldest Caleb had camp this week from 9 am to 1 pm which did made it more difficult. Our intention was for all 7 of us to do a certain hike but it would be a 2 hour drive each way and starting after 1 pm would make it very late. 

Change of plans. We did bring William to her house at the time when they were back with Caleb and they all went to ACAC to go swimming. Papa and Omi went home. Word was that they had a marvelous time. 

Here is a VIDEO   (0:32 minutes) and some photos from Sarah.

Sarah said William must have gone down the slide at least 10 times. Here he comes.

And yes, William could spent the night. Caleb was nice to let him have his bed and used the blow up himself. William stopped fitting into the blow up bed several years ago. They had had a lot of activity and slept well anyway.

Day 5 - Wednesday

Sarah had intended for Caleb to skip camp but he whispered to her that it was the day of archery and he really didn't want to miss it. No problem. There is so much to do, we can do something which does not involve that long drive.

So, at 9 am she dropped Caleb of at Rockwood Park Nature Center and Sarah, William and the twins and Stella of course went for a walk there. 

Before 12:30 James and I were at Sarah's house, we all piled into her minivan and left to pick Caleb up. Everybody already had lunch so we continued to drive to the Richmond Zoo. It was a hot hot hot day but we did enjoy it anyway. So many cute things to see like the meerkats and the sloth.

There were lovely statues everywhere. We remember the story of the orphan cheetah and the puppy several years ago. They are still there (laying lazy in the shade) and even have a statue.

Feeding the giraffes is always fun. VIDEO  -from Sarah, look at that tongue-     (0:42 minutes)

Oh yes, the aviary. Of course we had already bought feeding sticks with the entry tickets. 

Most pictures are from Sarah. Omi stayed outside with her backpack and took this photo through the fence.

What is an outing without treats? Ha-ha, first we went through all our pockets to find small bills. I ended up exchanging a $20 down to 10s and 5s at the next kiosk. After all that we found out that the ice creams the boys wanted were not available. Empty!

So we went to the kiosk I just had changed the bills and the boys were happy with a shaved ice. Sooooo refreshing, ha-ha. And cheaper, ha-ha. 

Of course, this was right next to the sky ride. Can you guess what happened next? Please, please, please. Sarah figured out how we could do it since there were 4 children and 3 adults. She asked how it worked and it was perfectly safe for the two older boys to be in one chair and she with the twins in another. 

And here the VIDEO   (0:22 minutes)   from Sarah. It really looks like fun. I might have to do it sometime too. 

Of course we had heard about the new baby camel (dromedary) and had to visit it several times.

The kangaroos had a display in front to show how far they can jump. Most of our boys were between a frog and a rabbit. Part of the listing was Mike Powell who set the World Long Jump Record 1991 of 29 ft 4 1/4 in (8.95 meter). Seeing how far that was from the line was mindboggling. We looked it up on google and found a video how he did it. OMG.

Yes, everybody had to try it.

After that we made our way towards the exit. Had to admire the baby hippo. 

Back to their house. Some TV in the basement family room.  Take-out chinese for all. Time to find all of William's things and for James, William and me to go home. 

Thank you for a lovely time, Auntie!