Fun week with Elizer and others

 Last time I posted it was all about our week with our daughter Miki.  This post will be all about our week with Elizer.  Things seem to go by weeks in this season of our lives. 

As I said at the end of the last post, we had met Alex on Sunday, October 16 to bring Elizer back to Destiny for the week.  It was so precious to see Destiny and Elizer cuddling on the couch that evening after the Fall Festival we had gone to.  Then they went home to their house for the night. 

On Mondays Destiny works 2:30 - 11:00, so after Miki and Kicki had left for Manheim, I met Destiny and Elizer at Cracker Barrel for lunch.  I took him home with me then, and the first thing he wanted to do was go for a walk.  It was cold, but sunny, so we did.  Later when Dick got home we bundled him up for a tractor ride around the neighborhood.  

On Tuesday it was even colder, but we took our walk anyway and played at the playground all bundled up.  

Could he possibly be any cuter than he was that day in this outfit??  Alex had taken him for a bit of a haircut - so cute!

Wednesday was one of those days when it was cloudy and raining one minute and sun shining the next. Look at this view of a rainbow from my kitchen window!  I'm sure that pot of gold was over there in the mountain somewhere, haha!

I took food over to Anthony and Lori later and the autumn views were stunning!

More sweet pics of this precious boy.  I got him a pair of sunglasses because he really hates when the sun shines on him in the car.  He kept them on the whole way home from Walmart.  

The sun shining through the front door made a rainbow on our carpet Friday morning, which fascinated him.  We also had lots of fun with masks.  In the lower left picture he was "fixing" his tractor.  

Destiny usually has off on Fridays and Saturdays, but last week she was asked to work four hours on Friday.  Time-and-half pay is nice.

  In the evening we went to our church's chicken and waffle fundraiser dinner.  Destiny was expecting fried chicken, haha!  Nope.  The traditional chicken and waffles around here looks like this.  And it was delicious!  

When we came home we got started on the Halloween crafts she had gotten to do with Elizer.  

It was adorable to watch them decorate the cake pops together. 

The end result: his hand print (not finished yet), decorated pretzel sticks, cake pops, and picture frames.  

Saturday was a fabulously sunny day!!  I went up to the church to pick up our Honey Baked Ham sandwich meals, another fund raiser.  The ladies were having toooo much fun!

I had a bunch of other errands after that - blood work before my upcoming physical, grocery store, the bank, the bird seed store, and the music store.  I saw so many people wearing white, and realized that the white-out homecoming Penn State football game was that evening.  I was thinking, "Oh these diehard football fans!"  After I got home I realized I had been wearing my white coat, hahaha!  Fitting in without even trying!  

No coats needed when Elizer and I went for a walk that afternoon!  I put his sunglasses on him, and he kept them on the whole time we walked around the block.  What a cool little dude! 

What's the best thing about walking?  Shuffling through the leaves!!  You gotta put your volume up when you watch this video.

Snacking with Mamma.

Dance par -tay!!

Elizer got into our Lego box and saw the instruction booklets (they're all torn apart after all these years and kids).  He said,  "Make a tractor, Mamma."  So she did!!  It's so fun that she can now play with the Legos again without needing to worry that he would put small pieces into his mouth.  

On Sunday morning after our church service, we had an Open House/Open Field event out on the hill where the new church building will be built.  The weather was SPECTACULAR!!!  What a view every way we turned!  So much beauty and anticipation!  Ground breaking will likely be in the spring. 

We had another special event to go to that day!  A "Frogmore" dinner in Manheim, hosted by Dick's brother Fred and his wife Deb.  Another term for that meal is "Low Country Boil."  When we used to all camp together at Camp Hebron, this was traditionally our last meal of the weekend.  But we haven't camped together since 2019, so they decided to invite us to their place for it.  However, because rain was a possibility, they made a last-minute decision to relocate it to a nearby church pavilion.  That was a great decision! 

Destiny had asked off work for that day, because she always loved that meal and being with the Stauffers.  Along the way we stopped in Duncannon to pick up Sammy and Bianca.  I cracked up when I saw on the picture that my shoe laces matched Sam's shirt, hahaha!!  

The weather was nice when we arrived and the kids had so much fun on the ball field playing kick ball.  A lot more kids arrived after I had already taken these pictures.  Of course, Elizer thought he was one of the big kids too!  

And here are the pics of our meal!!  Two long tables, and lot of people, and a lot of shrimp, sausages, potatoes, and corn with butter and cocktail sauce.  Dick's brother Bob and his wife from Minnesota were there!  Grandma Arlene was there too.  And of course Miki and Kicki and Hope from Sweden.  

I had a good time connecting with some family members, but not nearly enough!!  It had started to rain and the temp had gotten a lot cooler, but the kids insisted on playing outside anyway.  I knew that Elizer had a good heavy coat and hood on, but Sammy and Bianca did not have anything on their heads.  I stood out there for quite a while with my umbrella and took some pictures, but they were getting so wet.  

There really wasn't anything for the kids to do in the pavilion, so we decided to say our goodbyes to everyone and be on our way.  Of course, we had a lot more driving to do than any of the others.  

First of all we met Alex to give him Elizer for the week.  They were both happy to see each other.  

I decided to sit in the back seat between Sammy and Bianca on the way from Manheim to Duncannon.  We had a BLAST!!

The rest of the trip home was pretty much uneventful until we had already crossed Seven Mountains and suddenly Destiny said, "Oh my GOD!!!"  She had just realized that she had left her entire key ring in Elizer's diaper bag!!!  We couldn't believe it!!  We knew we would need a wire hanger or some such thing to unlock her kitchen window, but who even has them anymore??  

As we continued driving we passed a Dollar General Store and turned around to see what we could find.  Dick and Destiny went inside and eventually came out with a sturdy wire for a plant hanger.  She did know she had a spare car key in the house, but she had to get into the house!  We got to her place and got out of our van, none of us looking forward to the prospect of trying to pry her kitchen window open with that wire.  

And THEN Destiny discovered that there was a key under her front door mat!!!  It was an extra one she had loaned to her neighbor one time so she could feed Pixi, her chameleon.  She didn't even know that the neighbor had returned it there, but something just told her to look under the mat.  I cannot tell you how RELIEVED we all were!!!!  Let me tell you, on Monday I took her house key and got some extra ones made for Dick and me!!  

It was a late night after a long day, and we were glad Dick had already made arrangements at work for a half day off on Monday morning.   

We saw this beautiful blue jay at the feeder that morning.  

Later in the day, when I was taking Destiny's key back to her place I took this picture of the verbena we had planted in her front flower bed.  They did not bloom well all summer long, but now they are!  I guess they have liked the rain we got and cooler temps.  

This is the glorious view when driving away from her place.   Oh, Autumn, please take your sweet time!!!  

And that's a wrap for this time!