Wordless Wednesday

Thanksgiving Tuesday?

We went to St. Peter's today to celebrate Thanksgiving with the 2nd graders. Jake was our host, and seemed genuinely happy to see us. We had a school cafeteria turkey lunch, which was surprisingly good. Jake was pretty shocked that I knew the prayer that begins, "Bless us Oh Lord,...!" He turned to me and asked ,"Where did you learn that?" like it was a secret school handshake or something. LOL. We then spent an hour with Jake doing crafts and games related to the Pilgrims and Indians unit that they just studied in school.

Jake tries to fool Grandpa with 'hide the bean under a film canister'. I, for one, really doubt that the pilgrims played this game.

Jake is missing so many teeth, I am surprised he can eat. He literally doesn't have two teeth that rub together! He drew Indian symbols on his canoe for man, woman, and scout to represent the three of us. Cute!

Jake and his friend string dyed macaroni to make wampum belts and necklaces.


*********************************************************************************************************** As we were walking Jake back to his classroom, he pointed to Nathan through the school window, playing on the Jungle Gym. Bob and I went over there to try to find him afterwards. Bob had walked away when I spotted Nathan climbing up the rock wall. I ran and grabbed his foot from behind. He screamed like a girl! We gave him hugs and left.

Fun on Friday

Luke and Sophie had the day off school, so they came to spend the day while the parents were at work. We don't have the chance to see them every week now that they are in school full-time, so we had a lot of activities planned. First thing, they drew pictures for Aunty Hannah's care package. When Sophie drew flowers, Luke knocked her for not being "seasonal" enough. I had to unruffle some feathers after that. Then she drew a turkey, and he drew a flower. Whatever! He also had my phone and was taking a picture or videotaping himself everytime I turned around.(The videos are apparently too long to email, so here is one of his snapshots. IMHO, he needs to work on his photography. But his videos are darling! You'll have to take my word for it.

Next up was a craft for Thanksgiving. It was originally planned as bookmarks, but the kids decided they made pretty cool puppets. Insert spooky voice," I foresee a puppet show in your future. "

They then baked a pan of brownies. Luke thought that greasing the pan was pretty cool as long as his hand was in the baggie. Cool trick. They both took turns licking the spoon. We sent the brownies home with Patrick since we didn't trust ourselves around them are so generous.

We gave the kids a choice of a nature walk or the Como Zoo and they picked the zoo. Surprise! Luke commandeered my cell phone again and took pictures. This is one of them. The tiger was lying right next to the glass and gave us a chance to admire her up close. Photography is not his forte. But that's okay. He told us "he wants to be an Astronomer. Because he loves learning about the galaxy. And some astronomers have said that our solar system is going to burn out in about 5 billion years. But I shouldn't worry about it because it is only an estimate." And a bunch more about "white dwarfs" and the sun "imploding" and things like that. What I heard was the Mwa mwa mwa sound of the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon. But I am sure Boy Genius is right!

We went to McDonald's before heading home. Or as the kids call it, Mickey D's. Not our first choice. The afternoon was spent reading books and sitting in laps. Not a bad day. Not a bad day at all.

We're (Almost) Famous

I was published in today's edition of the St. Paul Pioneer Press Bulletin Board:

"Snatchuralism

My cousin Diane and I went out for a long leisurely lunch where I enjoyed 3 Diet Cokes. As we were walking into a store afterward, I told her that I needed to use the restroom...AGAIN.... ASAP.

She replied, "Well, you shouldn't drink so much....."

Just then , we looked up and saw a woman approaching us, her eyebrows arched and her eyes open wide in surprise. As she passed us, she averted her gaze.

When she was out of earshot we immediately started laughing, because we knew what she was thinking about me.

 "Bulletin Board" we said in unison!

 I have been on the other end of an eavesdropped conversation before, but from now on I promise not to jump to a conclusion quite so quickly.
Humbly,

Grandma Jody"