Fun grandchildren weekend

What a fun weekend we had!  As I said at the end of my last post, I picked up Sammy and Bianca on Friday after my lunch in Lebanon County with my Wisconsin friend.  That morning I had put frozen meatballs (which I had made the weekend before) into the crockpot along with peppers and onions, grape jelly, and BBQ sauce.  I had also cooked rice.  When we walked into the house I knew that even on low, those frozen meatballs were WELL DONE.  We did eat some of them for dinner and again on Saturday, but they were not the proudest meal I ever made.  The kids were much more interested in playing than eating anyway.

I caught this hilarious video of Bianca in the toy corner.

On Saturday morning we had a slow start, except for Grandpa, who had to go to work.  We pretended that the kids had to order and pick up their breakfast at the "window" of Grandma's Cafe!

It was a very dreary rainy day, so indoor activities were a must.  Around 11:00 we headed to Discovery Space.  I was afraid it would be packed, but it really wasn't.  Anthony and Lori and the boys came later and Dick came after he got off work at noon.  What a GREAT place to be with kids!  Getting an annual membership there was such a good idea.

After a couple of hours everyone was getting hungry, so we went to Wendy's for a late lunch.

Guess who this adorable pirate is?

We came home for some down time.  Dick watched Penn State's game on TV, Sammy took a nap on his cot in the bedroom.  Bianca had taken a nap on the way home from Wendy's and said she was all done napping when we got home.  I sacked out on the love seat, and even though the entire couch was available, she decided to sit right on top of me with her tablet, hahaha!  I loved it.  Destiny used to always sit right behind me or on top of me when she was little.  

Around 6:00 we left for a brand new adventure.  Get Air, a trampoline park, just opened here in State College.  What a FUN place to take kids!!  Especially on a rainy evening. 

Once again, it was not as packed with people as I had expected it to be.  There are areas that are just for younger children and other areas just for bigger children and adults.  But it was really hard to keep them in the right places.  Sammy and Austin were over the 46 inches, Bianca and Hunter were under.  Hunter was hilarious, running and jumping and climbing all over the place!

 Lori had a blast too!  Look at her in the air!

We had paid for an hour, but no one told us when an hour was up, so I think we had extra time!  But everyone was getting hot and thirsty, so drinks and ice cream at nearby Burger King sounded pretty good when we left. 

I was a very tired grandma queen by that time!

When we got home the kids needed baths, so we filled up the big tub and they played for a while.  We were trying to fill it up enough to turn the jets on, and when it seemed to be taking too long, we discovered that the drain had come open!!  Then we ran out of hot water temporarily.  When we did finally turn the jets on it wasn't quite full enough and they squirted up and out of control and we were all screaming!  That was enough of that.  Sammy declared our tub haunted, hahahahaha!  Even more so when, after having turned the jets off, they started to sound like they were passing gas as the water drained out of them.  What craziness!

On Sunday morning we went to GBRV.  As usual, Sammy wanted to play the piano before the service started.  Everyone makes a big deal of expressing their appreciation for his "prelude."

This was a selfie to send to Daddy and to Mommy, and she had to be silly!

I love when the children stand in a circle with the pastor to pray together after his story.  They repeat what he prays, phrase by phrase. 

We did not go to Calvary's service afterward, because Sam had the day off and was coming up.  We wanted to be home when he arrived.  We hung out at home till mid afternoon.  

Grandpa and Sammy worked and worked on the marble roller until the chain was fixed.  I did not get a picture of it after it was finished, but they had fun with it at every stage.

Bianca just chilled.  She's a pro, hahaha!  She watched Little Mermaid II and Air Buddies. 

We decided to go to Discovery Space later in the afternoon.  They were eager to show Sam all the fun things to do there. 

Then we went over to Anthony and Lori's.  The kids had fun playing in the basement playroom.  Play fighting, ugh.  Why do kids think that is so much fun???  Hunter was playing on the floor totally ignoring the craziness around him, haha!

Bianca loved it.  Look at her face!

After a while we had to say our goodbyes to Sam and the kids.  We'll see them soon, since we're spending this next weekend down there.

Lori had left that afternoon on a work trip, so I slept in their airbnb apartment Sunday and Monday nights so I could help out in the morning.  I took Hunter to daycare Monday morning, and he was singing - a silly song with just two words, "Tiny poop, tiny poop, tiny poop."  Good grief!  Doesn't take long for kids to think the word poop is hilarious!  Thankfully he was easily redirected and we sang lots of other songs.  Then he wanted to sing the ABC song, so we did.  But not just one time.  At the end of the song he would give directions like, "Sing it fast."  "Sing it really fast." "Sing it slow."  "Sing it loud." "Sing it quiet."  "Sing it together."  Then he started counting.  We were taking turns saying the numbers and just as I pulled into the parking space at daycare we got to 100.  You would have thought we had won the lottery the way he celebrated!  What a boy.  So cute and funny and precious!

I picked him up Monday afternoon, took him there again on Tuesday morning, and picked him up that afternoon.  On each trip we sang and sang.  Lots of old Sunday School songs - This Little Light of Mine, Running Over, Hallelu Hallelu Praise Ye the Lord,  Jesus Loves the Little Children, My God is So BIG.  And lots of nursery rhymes too.  I just love it.  

Here's a sweet picture of the kids Facetiming with Mommy on Monday evening.  

Lori got back home last evening. 

This is a glorious autumn day here in State College.  We have had some colder nights and some trees are beginning to have brilliant colors, even the one outside my sink window.  We had a great sunrise this morning too.

Gotta get busy now.  Have a great rest of the week!

Quick recap of our week

It's Saturday morning and it's raining, it's pouring, but the old man is not snoring.  He already went to work.  However there are two little ones in the house who are still asleep, so I'm going to try to get this blog post done before I have 500 more pictures taken this weekend!

Last weekend we were a grandchild-less couple.  Lori was away with the boys to a family event in the Baltimore area.  So Saturday was a good day to get some things done, but I told Dick on Saturday night, "If we stay home and do nothing but sit around the whole day tomorrow after church, I'm going to be depressed."  I was sort of joking, of course.  Sort of.

So on Sunday afternoon I contacted our dear friends Kris and Mel to see if we could have dinner at Applebee's together and it suited them!  Kris and I used to work in the church office together and we got so close.  She and Mel no longer attend GBRV and I miss them so very much.  We had the MOST FUN together that evening.  Seriously.  They are the funniest, sweetest people I know.  

I wish I had pictures of beautiful fall foliage to share.  But such is not the case.  This is the tree outside my sink window.  Other years it was bright orange.

Here's the view from our bedroom window.  The tree in the foreground was a beautiful red other years.  And look at that greenish yellow mountain behind it.  So disappointing.

This is the view from Lori's sink window.  Those typically bright yellow leaves are just a blah yellow-green.

We did get some pretty cold nights this past week, and I saw a few trees getting more color toward the end of the week, so I'm still hoping we'll get some beauty around here before winter.

Some of you may remember the dilapidated house I took a picture of months ago that someone had apparently bought and planned to refurbish.  They had immediately put scaffolding all around it, removed all the windows, and then nothing for months and months.  I felt so bad thinking of that house getting soaked with all the rain we've had and no windows.  Finally this week I saw new windows in the front of the house and insulation.  I can't wait to see more!

This was a pretty normal week of cooking and music prep and Bible study and choir practice.  I got one picture of Austin after school on Monday.  He immediately put his power ranger suit on, got himself a snack, and sat down to read.  He was a happy boy.  I'm so glad he loves to read. 

I finally got to see Hunter after Lori got home from work on Wednesday, but apparently I didn't take any picture.  He was his typical funny delightful self, of course. 

I took a "vacation day" yesterday (Friday).  I drove to Lebanon County to have lunch with a friend I had never met in real life before.  Kim lives in Wisconsin, and I had seen comments she had made on our Minnesota Stauffer relatives' Facebook posts.  I think it was five or six years ago that I apparently sent her a friend request when I thought I was just "liking" her comment on one of those posts.  I was so surprised when I was notified that she had accepted my friend request!  So I messaged her to explain what happened.  We stayed "friends" anyway and have found over the years that we have many similarities, one of which is the love of telling stories and getting ourselves into situations that require the telling of those stories, hahaha!!  Sometimes she would say she's sure I must have been her sister she had never met.  

So she was visiting her daughter and family for a few days in Lebanon County and I made the trip to meet her.  We had such a wonderful time together, laughing, sharing, shedding some tears, even ordering the exact same food!  

Sadly, last evening as she was driving to her son's place in Ohio she got involved in a four-car pileup near Pittsburgh.  She was not badly injured, but had to wait at an Applebee's for several hours until her son could get there to pick her up.  I felt so bad for her!!  But of course very thankful that she was okay. Especially amazing since she was in a little VW bug. 

I "kidnapped" Sammy and Bianca and brought them home with me for the weekend.  Here's just one picture and a video from last evening.  Sammy had dressed as Harry Potter for their parade at school yesterday and kept that tie on till bedtime!  I'll have lots more to share some other day.  

Slower days, slow autumn colors

Not one grandchild picture since the last time I posted!  What is my life coming to?  Hahaha!  

We are having such a drab autumn this year!  I grabbed some colorful things when I got groceries one day just to have something pretty to look at. 

So just mundane activities since Tuesday - cooking for Anthony and Lori (and us too, of course), grocery shopping, lots and lots of music prep.  No Bible study on Thursday morning because the State College School District had off and we follow their schedule.  No babysitting because Lori and the boys are away at a family funeral.  

We did have choir practice Thursday evening.  Our Christmas cantata is coming along really well.   The songs are easy and beautiful and fun.  You can listen to them on this YouTube link if you'd like. 

We're doing an unusual one tomorrow morning.  One of the men in the congregation sent me a song that was written by his 6x great grandfather!  He wondered if the choir could sing it on Laity Sunday.   I could barely read the tiny score, and the melody looked really unusual.  That's all there was - a melody and the lyrics.  No harmony, no chords, no accompaniment.  

So I first of all put the song into my composer program on my computer and set the tempo really slow so I could figure out the unusual rhythm and melody.  Then I decided on some chords to go with the melody and added some harmony parts for the last line of the song.  Last week I introduced it to the choir and they were game to try it.  Definitely not our favorite song ever, but not as bad as I expected when I first saw it.  

I was so happy to see this lovely sight when I pulled away from our bank on Friday.  I remember from other years that these were usually the first to turn, so maybe other trees will follow even as late in the season as it is.  

But for now, most trees just look like this.

Today the sky was constantly changing.  Sometimes it just depended which direction you looked.  Brilliant sunshine one minute, rain the next.  

This morning I finally did something for the first time in a very, very long time.  We have this wonderful big bathtub with jets, but the grandchildren are pretty much the only ones that ever take the time to enjoy it.  I decided to take the time.  Complete with lavender epsom salts.  It was really, really nice.  Hopefully I won't wait so long before I do it again.  Maybe it would even help my lower back.

It was nice to sit there and look up at the picture of Multnomah Falls.

Well, that's all for this time!

Fixing the washer, fun with the kids and the Stauffer siblings

We had a really fun weekend.  On Saturday I got some cleaning done around here.  Also, Dick figured out the problem with my washer.  Remember the wet floor I had on Friday?  I decided that I wanted to do my next load of laundry when he was home in case it would happen again.  So Saturday afternoon I gathered up all the dark laundry I could find and got it started.  When it got to the spin cycle I went into the laundry and announced, "We've got water on the floor!"

That started a further search for the problem.  And guess what we did first?  YouTube, of course!!  And sure enough, there was a tremendously helpful video about a sensor tube that connects at two different places.  Often the tube has come loose at one end or the other and it can't properly sense the water level.  

Both ends of the tube were still connected.  However, it was obviously clogged with gunk.  So Dick took the tube out, used his air pressure tank to blow all the gunk out, washed it thoroughly, reattached it, checked the water level at all three settings, and it was good to go.  He showed me how much higher the water level had been before he cleaned it out.  So obviously, my washer was filling with way too much water, and thus overflowing a bit.  After that was fixed and I had finished the dark load successfully, I rounded up all the white stuff I could find, including all the towels and rags we'd used to clean up water, and NO PROBLEM!!  Woohoo!!  I'm so thankful for a handy husband and for YouTube!!

That evening Austin and Hunter came here for a couple of hours.  I brought out a forgotten toy from the guest room closet.  I had to put new batteries in it, but it still seemed old and tired.  But Hunter had never seen it before and was thrilled, even if we  had to practically coax the butterflies out of that elephant's trunk!

Sheer delight!

Austin put together the marble roller.  That too had issues that even Dick could not figure out!  Our toys are old and well used!  So the chain that carries the marbles to the top did not work, but Hunter didn't mind.  He would drop the marbles into the tubes from the top and watch them spiral down through, squealing with delight!

On Sunday morning we went to our service at GBRV.  The choir sang the old spiritual, "If It Had Not Been for the Lord on My Side."  I love that song, and I really love its message.

When we left there we headed toward Lancaster County for the day.  But traffic was already slow right out of town because Saturday had been Penn State's homecoming game, and there were huge RV's in a long line ahead of us.  As we approached the exit we normally use when we go to Calvary I said to Dick,  "Can you drive up to Calvary and drop me off at the door?  Lori is doing the announcements today and I want to hear her!"  So being the kind husband that he is, he obliged!  I stood at the back of the auditorium during the two opening worship songs, and then, sure enough, there was Lori!  I am a hopelessly proud mother-in-law!!  I took a video to show Dick, and now I'm showing you.  She would roll her eyes if she knew, lol!

Each Sunday there is a suggested discussion question that can be used to get acquainted with the folks sitting around you.  They give a bit of time for that before the announcements.  This week's question was, "What good surprise have you experienced in your life?"  Lori briefly shared hers.  She said that during the 9:00 service the people had clapped and she started to tear up.  I should have started the clapping at this service, but I was trying to video, lol!

Then we hit the road.  It took a long time to get beyond the two-lane stretch of 322, but was much better after that.   We were eventually going to Dick's brother Fred's place, but first of all went to Sam's for a while.  Dick took a short nap.  I had fun with the kids.  Sammy introduced me to GoNoodle on YouTube.  If I did this every day I'd be in better shape!

Around 3:30 we went to Fred and Deb's place.  Dick's brother Bob and his wife Doris were visiting from Minnesota.  We always try to get all the brothers together whenever they come east.  It was a wonderful time as it always is.  

There was time for some guy talk in the living room and some girl talk in the kitchen before we ate. 

Then we all gathered around the long table in Deb's dining room for the food we had all helped to provide and lots more good conversation and of course, some good loud laughter.

We found out that Bob and Doris had a very special reason for a trip East.  They told us that they would be leaving in January for a year-and-a-half in Haiti!  Bob has been asked to teach some courses at the Christian Aid Ministries school for church leaders there.  So this would be the last time we'll all be together for a while.

Group pictures are always a priority, but especially this time.  

Dear Dad and his beautiful, faithful Arlene.  

Dad and all five of his boys!  I just love the grin on his face.  The three oldest boys are on the couch with Dad in age order:  Dick, Bob, Steve.  Sitting in front are the two "little boys" who got the tallest -  Jim and Fred.

And all twelve of us.  I wonder if Mother Stauffer in heaven could see us.  We were all in our twenties and young thirties when she died in 1981.  

Left to right:  Dick in front of me, Bob in front of  Doris, Dad and Arlene on the couch with Fred and Deb in front, Faye behind Steve, and Carolyn and Jim on the end.  

It was late till we got home, but Dick had made arrangements to go in to work late on Monday morning, so it wasn't too bad. 

I'll finish off here with this picture of the sunrise from my kitchen window this morning. 

Have a good rest of the week!