A Wonderful Whirlwind of a Week
Seeing our oldest son and his family for the first time in a year ….and being able to hug everyone was quite an emotional start to the busy week .
In the previous months Terry and I tried to plan all sorts of fun things to do for when our son, his wife, and our grandsons arrived via their car and their holiday road trip through the mountains , Calgary, and Drumheller.
We planned an entire pirate treasure hunt for them which was a complete success. Our four year old, Ilya actually spotted the treasure map sticking out of a tree after our picnic at Laurier Park before we even had a chance to direct their eyes over there . Terry wrote up a wonderful story about a river pirate named Captain Anchor, onto coffee stained material and then we spent the rest of the afternoon looking for clues with the map until the boys found the proverbial “X” marks the spot in a forest and they could dig up the treasure. The boys were so into the whole adventure and they were thrilled when we opened the ancient box to find all sorts of chocolate coins, stickers, jewelry, and rock crystals.
We had a lot of fun doing crafts as well. We set out a wee table and three small chairs in our kitchen so the boys would have a place to create. There was a time of finger print art, painting an original puzzle and matching box, and using balloons to paint on canvasses. They did well with all these new experiences.
There were pool times and parks and play time at the lake. Each day we had fun with our grandsons and their mum while our son had to work in our home office. In the evenings we had the blessing of eating dinner as an entire family, great talks, visits from more family (like our daughter or my sister and her husband), reading time with the boys, and we enjoyed great meals too.
We were lucky we had that little pool as the temperatures soared to 30+ degrees. Our Zoo day was too hot but the boys enjoyed it and ice cream helped.
We had some pretty crazy things happen as well. Terry threw his back out that first day together so we’ve also spent the week trying to get him healed with many chiropractor and massage appointments and regular icing.
Early in the week our youngest boy at 18 months old had a diaper accident in the pool so it had to be completely drained, sanitized, and refilled!
This morning we woke up to our house alarm blaring when one of the children opened the door. Toys are underfoot, laundry and dishes are constant but so is our love for this family.
Family number two arrives in two days from Vancouver. From silence and solitude to family and fun. Hard to believe we could get back to this finally despite this horrible pandemic . And tomorrow night SpiritLine will perform in a (Zoom)concert out of L.A. for “Red’s Room”! Phew!
More adventures await!