To Alex -

To Alex...who is far away in person, but never far from my heart. I miss you. Enjoy these snippets of everyday family life here in the states.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Miss M...Again

I love this girl! I rescued her over the weekend from having to hang with her brothers while they played football with the college guys. She would have gone to CMU with Mom and her brothers, she would have been a sport about it, but when I whispered in her ear that she could also come home with me Friday night, she about fell off her chair with delight. I mean really, who wouldn't want to hang with me?

Saturday gave us a beautiful day to play and it seems we packed it full without feeling especially busy. We made fruit smoothies for breakfast because "we always have to cook something" and then wandered into the craft room. I worked on a journal page while she practiced a new technique for making flowers for her scrapbook. Had we not had other plans for the day she probably would have made a whole garden of flowers.
It's quite simple, really. Stamp a flower image onto colored card stock, highlight some areas with white gel pen and loosely cut around your image when it dries. They're now ready to be pasted into her book.

I'm glad she liked this project because I prefer she learn to make her own embellishments than have her (or mom) go broke purchasing ready-mades from the store. Imagination rules!

I had promised her a few games of bowling at an old 2-story bowling alley near my house, not realizing that she had only bowled once before. lol Wengers didn't have a lane with bumpers open, but she was sure she would be okay without them. Imagine her delight when she got not one, but two spares! And she was jumping up and down cheering for me when I got a strike. I didn't bring my camera along and I'm sort of happy about that. It would have been nice to get pictures, but it was such a joy to experience her delight that I didn't really miss my camera. Sometimes, you just have to 'put the camera down,' right, Alex?

Mid afternoon found us walking several blocks to get ice cream. Aren't the calories free if you have to walk for it? I think so. And just for good measure, we took the long way home through the park, and since we're in the park don't you think we should climb the hills and go exploring in the woods? Ha, we thought so too!
She stopped half way up and breathlessly exclaimed, "these hills are big! My legs are sore." Well, mine would be too if I ran up the hill.

The hills are verrry big. Once at the top you can look out over most of the city. It's one of my favorite things about where I live, having the park with it's hills and woods and creek to explore.
Keep going Sis, you're almost there. She wasn't really. Once you get to the top of this, the path turns to the right and you have more of a climb.
Oh, but look what we found! Jack-In-The-Pulpit. They're only just beginning to bloom but we found a few.
Playing in the May Apples.
All this in one day. How fun is that?

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