Our fun week with Sam and the kids

Well, last time I told you that if you don't hear from me for two weeks it would be because I was having fun.  And I WAS having fun for one week and then playing catch-up the second week.  So finally today I have some time here to tell all about it.  Because I want to cover that entire week in one post and I have so many pictures, I decided to put most of them into collages.  Not quite the same, I know, but otherwise this post would be miles long.  I'm sure the pictures will get bigger by clicking on them if you want to see something better. (By the way, if you read this blog on a blog reader and you don't get to see my header picture, it's worth the little bit of time to go to my blog and see it.)

Saturday, August 12
Two weeks ago, on Saturday August 12, Dick and I left here around 1:30 to go Bianca's birthday party at Jenn's parents' house above Harrisburg.  It was not long at all until we hit really stormy weather.   How many times in one summer do I have to tell this same tale??  It was absolutely horrible, and I was so thankful Dick was driving.

It seemed like once again the storm would travel with us the entire trip, but eventually we got ahead of it.  We got to Jenn's parents right around 3:00 when the party was to start.  They had such a nice set-up on the porch for the party, but alas, the storm was threatening to arrive soon, even a tornado warning, so we decided it would be better to be indoors.

As it turned out the storm never really did get very bad and we were able to go outside later for the pinata.   Bianca was SO sweet while opening all her many gifts.  And Sammy was right by her side helping her however he could.  It was so sad that Jenn couldn't be there (she's been away all month for training), but we face-timed and also her aunt kept sending her short videos of each gift Bianca opened.  It was a really fun afternoon.  Jenn's family are experts at doing fun parties!

Then Sam and the kids packed themselves and their stuff into our van and we went to our place.  Sammy was so excited to see our "RV", so the first order of business was for Dick and Sam to put it up.  The kids had so much fun playing in it.

We had sloppy joes for dinner.  Later on Bjorn and Jess arrived!  A few weeks prior they had asked if we had any weekend in August that they could come.  I told them that we had just one weekend with no plans (this one).  Or if they wanted to see Sam's kids they could come up Saturday evening the 12th and stay till Sunday.  That is the one they chose.  They love the kids and the kids love them.  We had such a funny time talking about the fact that Bjorn is actually their cousin, not their uncle.  We ended up calling him their uncle cousin, LOL!

Sunday, August 13
I just hate missing any fun when we have a houseful of people, so my night was very short, especially since the next day was Sunday and we get up for an 8:15 service.  After the service at Fillmore we came home to get Bjorn, Jess, and Sammy and we went to Calvary's 10:30 service.

Back home again we had Mexican Pile-up for lunch.  I had made so much chili for Stauffer camping in June and had a lot leftover due to our smaller number of people this year, so I immediately had put some in the freezer and pulled that out for this particular meal.  We had brought Hunter home with us after church so Lori and Anthony could get ready for the cookout at their place later.  Austin was away for the day with Lori's brother and his son.  They were at Cedar Point amusement park in Ohio!

We caught short naps in the afternoon and then went over to Anthony and Lori's for the cookout.  It's so nice now with the big, flat crushed stone area.  Hunter was just crazy over one of Bianca's birthday gifts - a lawn mower that blew bubbles.  I think I followed him around with that thing for at least an hour!  The picture above is when he first discovered it at our house (without the bubbles, of course!)  It was so much more fun outside and with bubbles.

Bjorn and Jess left for Manheim from Anthony and Lori's.  We and Sam and the kids helped clean up and then went back to our place.  The sweet picture above is of Bianca calling Mommy on our play phone.   The sweetest thing!!

Monday, August 14
When I think of all we did on Monday I'm not sure how we did it all in one day.  Here at home in the morning I got some food prepared for Anthony and Lori as well as for us.  Sammy got started with the Legos, building a truck which he kept improving off and on all day.  It started out as a Christmas tree truck and ended up a rugged muscle truck!  His creativity and ability to stick with things is really impressive.  He also wanted to play games, so we pulled out the Connect Four and Chutes and Ladders.  He roped me and Sam into playing those games with him every chance we had.  Bianca contented herself playing in the toy corner with the play sink and the doll house, etc.   She cracked us up one time when she walked into the kitchen pretending to be playing a trumpet.  Her "trumpet" was the clothes tree from the doll house, hahaha!!

After lunch we went to Spring Creek Park thinking it would be fun for the kids to wade in the water.  But we were surprised how cool the weather was, and Bianca wasn't at all interested in getting wet.  We still had a really fun time there.  

Then we went to Anthony and Lori's with their food, and from there Sam took me to my piano students' home.  While I gave lessons for an hour he took the kids to Circle Park nearby.  

We had the dinner that was in the crock pot after we got back home.  More games, more Legos, and Bianca got out another birthday gift - a huge coloring book and crayons.  

Tuesday, August 15
I don't think I took any pictures on Tuesday!!  I'm sure we played games and played the piano.   Lori and Anthony had guests arriving at their airbnb apartment, so I needed to get the room cleaned and prepped.  Sam took me to their place and dropped me off.  While I was there they went somewhere for lunch and then came back here to play and nap, then later came to pick me up.  That evening America's Got Talent was on TV and Sammy had never watched it before.  He was SO INTO IT!!!  

Wednesday, August 16
Wednesday was a really full day.  In the morning I prepped food for Anthony and Lori and for us.  Then we took some of it to their place and went to Penn State's Ag Progress Days just a few miles from Anthony and Lori's place.  It's a HUGE event up here that Dick has often gone to, but I never had.  Dick was working there that day.   The company he works for was selling tires, and he was delivering the tires to people's vehicles with a golf cart.  It was a HOT day, and for the longest time we did not know where to pick up a map of the place.  We had no idea where among all those vendors we would find Grandpa.  And cell service was nil.  I felt like an old woman!  Just no energy at all to do all that walking in the heat.  But we did it.  We got some hot dogs and drinks and found a picnic table under a tarp.  Whew!  The kids enjoyed sitting on big equipment.  Sammy went to an interactive display about insects and insect spray.  He kept telling us the rest of the week about the stuff he remembered from that!  When I put insect repellant on him two days later at camp he said, "Remember what they said, that some spray is for skin and some is for clothing.  Is this spray ok for skin?"  I assured him that it was!  At last we found a map and discovered that we had actually been right in front of Dick's tent when we first arrived, but we hadn't noticed!  We were so glad to finally find him!  Later in the evening when he got home he asked the kids what was their favorite thing at Ag Progress Days.  Sam and I both agreed that finding Grandpa was it!  

That evening I went to our Wednesday evening Houserville/Mt. Nittany combined service and led the praise team.  I got back home about the same time Dick got home from Ag Progress Days around 8:30 pm.  Sam and Sammy had started working on putting together our marble roller before I left for church.   Sammy was still playing with it when I got home several hours later.  He kept revising it over and over again for several more hours!!  He just could not stop.  

Meanwhile I got out the ukelele we had given Bianca for her birthday.  All week we had been listening in the car to the CD from the Disney movie Trolls that she loves so much.  You should hear her adorably sweet voice singing True Colors in perfect tune.  You know that that totally melts this grandma's heart!!!  Another song on the CD is Simon and Garfunkle's  The Sound of Silence.  Sam discovered a YouTube video of someone teaching how to play that song on a ukulele.  So I figured out how to play the chords, changing very slowly at first, even bought the written music for the song on musicnotes.com, and I learned how to play it!!  

Another fun thing that morning was watching Sammy and Bianca looking through my pictures on the computer.  His attention span for that was endless, hers not so much.  But he kept trying.  He's the kind of person who enjoys things so much more when he has someone to enjoy them with.  I can totally relate!

Thursday, August 17
Thursday was another full, fun day.  The weather wasn't quite so hot, and going to the arboretum was on our agenda, so we decided we'd better go before lunch to beat the heat.  Just like last year, the children's area was a great hit and so was the fountain.  We had the greatest time for about an hour.  We actually could find nowhere to park!  Penn State faculty was back to work and the parking guard told us that if we could find any empty spot in the faculty parking lot nearby we could take it if we didn't stay more than an hour.   That worked for us and we did find a spot. 

From there we went to Sowers Harvest Cafe for lunch.  I enjoy taking all my visitors there, but this time it was a bad idea.  For one thing, it is downtown and students were starting to move in, so traffic was crazy.  And I realized that the menu is not extremely kid friendly.  

After that we went to Discovery Space Science Museum.  I dropped Sam and the kids there while I went for some groceries.  When I picked them up we went to Walmart and Dick's Sporting Goods so Sam could look for a swim suit for the weekend.  The kids had the greatest time exercising on the equipment while Sam shopped!  I think they're stronger than I am!  

In the evening we started getting stuff together for our camping weekend.  Sam and Dick put the camper down (the kids had played in it several times throughout the week) and Sam gave the kids a fun bath in my big jacuzzi tub.  

Friday, August 18
That picture of me above was actually a selfie I took on Friday.  That was a very rainy morning, in fact a very rainy afternoon as well.  I prepped and took food over to Anthony and Lori's (dropped Sam and the kids off at Goodwill while I did that.)  When I was ready to leave their place it started POURING!  Rain does terrible things to my hair, so I just put that handy dandy casserole carrier over my head and ran to the car!  (Grandma Mary lovingly made one of those for each of us many years ago, and I use it many times as I carry food to Anthony and Lori's place.)  

The rest of the afternoon was spent getting everything packed and ready to go.  While the rain left (of which we were very thankful) the humidity decided to stay with a vengeance!  Packing up after Dick got home from work was a test of endurance.  In addition to the humidity, there was some sad drama happening in our neighborhood as well.  We actually left for the campground with a mix of excitement and a touch of sadness.  

When we got to the KOA campground (about 25 minutes away) Sam helped Dick to set up the camper, then he took the kids to the pool while I got the beds ready and Dick started the fire for our hot dogs.  Dick added a really nice touch to our campsite (which was really nice and spacious) by hanging a string of lights he had salvaged from Jeremy's DC patio!  We had our hot dogs and some s'mores, and eventually some tired little people went to sleep in the camper.  I finally had a chance to go to the bathhouse and could not believe it!!  The bathhouse consisted of seven big private bathrooms, complete with heat and AC!!!!  

Saturday, August 19
Unfortunately Dick was not able to have off work Saturday morning, so he quietly sneaked away while the rest of us slept.  After we woke up I put my apron over my pj's and made bacon, eggs, and home fries on our camper stove.  I felt so ugly, but sweet Bianca looked at my "strubbly" hair and said, "Mahna, your hair looks beautiful!"  Oh my goodness.  For a spitfire of a girl, she also can be the sweetest thing ever!!  And her love for her daddy is also the most precious thing I've ever seen.  Sam had a great one-liner that morning.  When I realized that I had forgotten to bring hot sauce for him, I asked him what he was going to do without hot sauce all weekend.  He adds it to EVERYTHING!  He said, "If I were a woman I would keep hot sauce in my purse!"  

After I had everything cleaned up and Sam had taken the kids off to play I finally had my chance to go to one of those bathrooms for my private shower in the air conditioning!  Total luxury at a campground!  

In fact, I took so long that Sammy was concerned.  He kept telling Sam that they should check on me.  Sam assured him that women take longer than men!

For lunch I put out the fixins for sandwiches.  Dick arrived from work and Anthony, Lori, and the kids arrived too.  They would not be sleeping there this time, but spending the days with us.  

What a FUN afternoon we had!!  There was a huge bubble machine that produced a lake of bubbles!  The man running it said they use a gallon of Palmolive dish detergent!  Sammy had an absolute blast!!  Austin wasn't interested - he was too engrossed in panning for gems.  (I'll show that later.)  

Then we all had fun at the pool for a while.  It felt so good on that humid afternoon.  For dinner Dick made burgers over the campfire.  Were they ever delicious!!   

As we finished eating we started paying attention to the sky and the weather apps on our phones.  It looked like we were going to get quite a storm.  So we cleaned up, putting everything that should not get wet into the camper, the truck, and the van.  Then we headed to the camp's pavilion.  A tractor and wagon ride was scheduled for 6:30, but that's about the time the storm hit.  So we just hung out in the pavilion and made our own fun.  Lori had brought a ladder golf game for the boys,  Hunter just enjoyed walking around and pushing things like chairs around.  Bianca watched a video on their tablet.  Sammy and Bianca danced a bit.  

Later on there was an ice cream social right there in the pavilion.  By that time the temperature had really dropped and we were COLD!!  We cracked up at Hunter walking around in one of Lori's shirts. 

The rain had stopped by then and we made our muddy way back to our campsite.  Anthony and Lori and their kids went home for the night.  Dick built a fire and we pulled our dry chairs out from the truck.  Ah yes, nothing like dry chairs and a good fire on a night like that.  Even some hot chocolate.  Sam and the kids were FaceTiming with Jenn.  Sammy was being a comedian for her as usual.  That night the extra blankets I had brought along felt really good and we slept GREAT!  

Sunday, August 20
Sunday morning was downright chilly!  I was glad for my sweater.  For breakfast we went to the pavilion for the pancakes and sausage breakfast they were serving.  We sat in the sunny end!

Right after breakfast Sammy could hardly wait to go to the jumping pillow below the pavilion.  At first it was just he and two other kids, but soon more came.  Sam brought Bianca, and Sammy helped her to get on it.  He even told the other kids to be careful because his little sister was there!  I'm telling you, I have NEVER seen a more loving brother.  He just adores her!  He calls her "honey."  It's beyond precious.   Eventually Sam joined them on the jumping pillow too.  They had an absolute blast!!  On the collage below I included a picture of the bath house and one of the adorable  cabins.

When Anthony and Lori arrived, the first order of business for Austin was to hit the gem panning!!  He and Sammy had had some disagreements the day before over whose gems were whose, so we decided to get them started off right this time.  The bags of sand with gems and stones and shark teeth, etc in them are bought at the camp store, so we made sure each boy knew exactly which belonged to whom and made sure they kept things separate as they panned.  It kept them happily occupied for a long time, especially Austin.  He would far rather do something like this than eat.  What a great thing for kids to do!  And educational too.

For lunch we used up whatever we had left - hot dogs, bacon, sandwiches, grapes, rice krispie treats.  I also made several pizza mountain pies, which were a great hit.   And then it was time to clean everything up and pack up.  Bianca needed a nap, but the camper would be coming down, so Sam made her a bed on the ground and there she slept!  

As we pulled away around 2:30 in the afternoon we knew we'd be back.  We just loved it there. 

Back at home we unloaded our stuff, Sam packed up all their stuff, and we hit the road for Lebanon.  I couldn't believe that this week we had looked forward to for weeks was already over.   One thing we had talked about that day was that it was the anniversary of Sam joining our family on August 20, 1997.  Picking up that 16-year-old city boy from the Reading Children's Home on a Saturday morning is a vivid memory in my mind.  I cannot imagine our family without him and his precious family.   

As we were nearing their place the kids were FaceTiming with Jenn and being so silly, especially Sammy.  When we got into the house my heart almost broke as Bianca ran through the house calling, "Mommy! Mommy!"  She thought Jenn would be there.  Awww.  I told her,  "Honey, Mommy's not here yet.  She'll come home next weekend!"  She got mad at me then.  I don't blame her!  

I thought I would stay at their place overnight, but after we got there I started thinking of all the things I needed to do at home and decided I would rather drive back home that evening.  I got another coffee at Sheetz and did just fine. 

I've been catching up in all areas of my life this week, and now finally on this blog!!  Not too much to post about from this past week, but maybe I'll do a short one tomorrow. 

Have a happy Sunday!