Grandparent's adventure day 1&2

The boys arrived about 11 AM on Sunday ... in full glory!!! We are having the best time watching them and celebrating Austin's 7th birthday! There is nothing quite like turning 7 years old! He's so grown up now ... and being the oldest of the pack, he's certainly exercising his "being in charge" rights! I took him to pick out his cake today (ninja turtles) and it was so sweet to just have time with him one on one. The other fellas get their time by demand and need, as they're still a bit young. It was delightful to have conversation and time with the grown up one! We had a fun little birthday party for Austin this evening with a hot dog feast on the patio and a cake and ice cream feast in the dining room (without the bugs!). The three of them took a piece of cake to Bruce (our next door neighbor) for his contribution to the birthday gift pile. It was pretty cute watching that delivery! They all three seem to have pretty sweet hearts and adventurous spirits. Although on the adventure thing, Christian is definitely the city boy amongst them!

As you can see, we went down to Elk River Falls today (in Paul's Saab!!! such fun!) and let the boys swim in the river. They were blue in the lips by the time we headed home, but had a great time and were invigorated enough to play baseball (ok, t-ball ), swing on the rope swing that Paul-Paul put up Sunday afternoon, and help Paul mow some of the yard. Cade seems to be the one who enjoys learning hands on stuff. Austin and Christian are more the "engineers" of the bunch, which works out good. It is always good to have some figure out HOW to make "it" ... and others to actually put "it" together! They all seem to be very close, and even though we have 3 beds for them, they all end up sharing and switching around and about. It's fun to watch them, have I mentioned that yet? Anyways, just wanted to send a brief update as it gets pretty busy and I'm afraid I'll forget what all we've done! If you don't get personal e-mails from us this week, please understand... we're just a bit preoccupied!

Oh, and by the way, the second show (recital) went very well and we were extremely pleased with the outcome of the entire thing. Whew! So, next week we might try to get back to normality ... if there really is any such thing ... but for the rest of this week, we are basking in grandparent hood ! To these children's moms and dads, thanks so much for sharing your lovely children - and congratulations on a wonderful job raising these healthy, happy boys.

And we do hope all of you fathers out there had a WONDERFUL father's day ... and a day of rest and relaxation. We understand Paul's dad had one heck of a work day on Father's day, so perhaps the coming up weekend will be a calmer time of it! :-) Mel, if it makes you feel any better, Paul started working at 8 AM on the boy's room ... we finished about 8 pm (with interruptions and meals, etc). Perhaps there is comfort in knowing you weren't alone!

We're hoping to get to the Tweetsie Railroad, the Blowing Rock Park made for little boys with climbing walls and such, the movies if there is anything for their ages, the local horse ranches and the Roan Mountain State Park camp ground (in no particular order) ... but mountain weather is very unpredictable so that is what dictates our schedule. Will keep you all posted!

Cheers to all, Paul & Cheri