59 Years

Last week on September 11th my grandparents celebrated their 59th wedding anniversary.  

For richer and poorer, in sickness and health these two have forged through highs and lows and still manage to sleep in the same bed!  They are a wonderful example of what married life should be.  I see Hans and myself like this is 51 years.  My grandpa is a funny man and is rarely ever serious.  My grandma graciously puts up with that.  My grandpa still gives my grandma noogies.  My grandma hasn't decked him yet.  

My grandparents with their grandchildren and great grandchildren.

They are wonderful parents, grandparents, and great grandparents.  Happy Anniversary (a little late) to my wonderful grandparents!

Summer Travels: New York

We had one busy summer!  When the pictures keep piling up I keep finding reasons not to go through them all.  Before I knew it, I had 1,322 pictures to go through and that does not include the disc from Disney that came last month.  With all of those pictures there must be one or two good pictures, right?  Let's hope.

This summer we headed to New York to spend time with the family and celebrate my grandma's 80th birthday.  We drove to my Aunt's house in Fredonia, NY to stay the night before meeting the whole family the next day.

 Gus felt that 8 hours in the car right next to Fritz just wasn't close enough.  These two had to have a little snuggle time before running and playing.

 Gus was in dog heaven with Maddy and Fritz.  Maddy and Fritz got along very well.  Which was good because they were going to be boarded together for the next 3 1/2 days.

The next morning my Aunt Diane (or "Diant," as Anders called her) had fun showing Anders pictures of the place we would be staying.

This is where we stayed.  This sits on top of the sky slope at the Peek 'n Peak Resort.  It was great because we had access to all of the amenities, but were away from all of the commotion.  Because let's face it, with 18 people staying here we had enough commotion all on our own.

Within an hour of our arrival we hit the pool.

John always looks a little worried when he is going down slides.

 Ericka is always a big help.  Anders likes having undivided attention.  He takes full advantage.

 This place had a large indoor and outdoor playground.  After swimming for a bit we let the kids play.

 Anders has no fear and will climb absolutely anything.

 I figured I should help him out on this one before he decided to do flips.  I'd like to save some stitch inducing activities for when this kid turns 3.

After the pool and the park the adults were all ready for a nap!

Thomas the Train StoryHour

When my boss Lisa made the program schedule for Summer Reading, I jumped at the chance to do the Thomas program.  This was right up my alley.  I'm pretty sure I still know most of the train names.

 Pinterest gave me lots of decorating ideas.

 I had the tables set up in different colors and then the kids told me all the trains that were red, blue, yellow and green.

 All the kids went home with their very own train whistles.  I know the parents just loved me that day.  I wonder how many train whistles were "lost".

 After a story or two I was showing the kids the cool finger puppets we would be making.

 After cutting out about a million pieces of felt, I thought it might be best to put the faces together for them since the parts were so small.  But the kids glued the heads on the train body and the bumpers.  Each child went home with 3 train puppets, Sir Topham Hat and a conductor.  I wasn't kidding about cutting out about a million pieces of felt.

 The next craft was making a train out of lots of sweet, messy, sugary things.

The kids enjoyed the stories, crafts, songs and food.  Some of the parents are even still talking to me after I sent their kids home with train whistles and hyped up on sugar!