My last blog post was on March 8. As it’s now the 22nd, that means I missed three of my regular blogging days. I hate doing that, but I had a good reason. We drove to West Texas and picked up our four grandchildren bringing them back to Arkansas for their spring break.

Due to the covid pandemic, which included Lynda and I contracting it but processing through it easily (for me) or at least not severe (with Lynda) was reason enough to cancel any hope for a family Christmas. We had already decided not to have Thanksgiving together, so that meant we hadn’t seen our grandkids since last June—except on Messenger or Zoom calls.

So we had the kids from Sunday though Saturday. E1 and I worked on repairs to the fort in the woods across the street, which had a wall damaged from a leaning tree. We had to untie a number of posts from the damaged top bar, the try to push the tree in a way that it would not damage another wall. We could only do this after I sawed the tree into two pieces. I had already cut a new top bar from a dead but not yet rotted tree on our property. I carried it to the street then E1 took it across the street into the woods and to the fort.

E1, who is in junior high track and ran cross-country last fall, did a timed mile on our hill. He did this in new running shoes we got him, well fitted at a running shoes shop.

E2 was his usual quiet self. He pulled out our set of The Chronicles of Narnia and picked up reading in them where he had left off at home. He is reading the Bible through, now in Job, and we read with him several nights. He went on a couple of walks with us. One evening, as twilight was beginning to fall, he and E1 went into the woods chasing after a herd of 10 deer that passed through our yard. They went through the deep ravine and made it back to our house via the street just as dark was closing in.

E3 really enjoyed her walks. She and E4 and I played with Leggos in the play room. She reads a lot, and was always ready to go on a walk with me and Grandma, or sometimes just with me and “the two littles” i.e. E3 and E4. E3 also helped me put away the winter display and put up and Easter one. She especially enjoyed putting the tiny eggs on two little trees.

E4 worked on his potty training and did well with it. Since Grandma has had relatively little snuggling time with him, she was the designated “read him to sleep person”. Sometimes Grandpa had to come in to take him from her arms and put him in bed. A few nights he wanted me to sing him to sleep. He kept wanting to be on screens like his older siblings.

Mindful that this was their vacation, Grandma and Grandpa were somewhat lax with bedtimes and the amount of screen time we let them have. Hopefully they will fall back into regular routines quickly at home. The three older kids also got in some laser tag with the boy up the street (who was not on spring break) for a couple of days. But they all had opportunity to work on making words from longer words for money. The three older ones all earned something. And they wrote letters home to their parents and to their other set of grandparents.

The two adults in the house are beat. We will be glad to be home soon and to wind down from all the work, but we wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Possibly we’ll get them back sometime this summer, when they will have another large pot of Grandpa’s Mythical Sandwich for supper over several nights.