Kids, kids, and more kids!

It's hard to find time to blog when we are visiting the kids and grandkids in Charlottesville.

We are so busy with them during the day and then come evening, we tend to crash. Plus we do have the dogs as well, so they must be attended to and walked. I always try to spend time with them if we have left them alone for a bit. But they do very well and never get into anything. They are very patient with us and we love them dearly.

We spent the week taking in the grandkids routine. They each are in gymnastics and swimming classes and Aenea is also in a dance class. Both of them concentrate very hard and listen to the instructors. I had to laugh at Ronan's gymnastics class because he was about the only one listening intently to the teacher. The other kids were bouncing off the walls, doing what the teacher said NOT to do and running all over the room instead of listening. My grandkids are the best!

Aenea really likes her dance class. She didn't talk at all during her class, but she tried everything the
teacher taught her and when she got home, she was repeating things the teacher said and did little movements she had been taught. She is such a sweetie. I am thankful they are both such good listeners.

She is quite the artist. She loves to paint, so Jocelyn and Tom encourage her by keeping an easel up all the time. It sits in the kitchen and Aenea paints whenever she wants. She paints a lot. She is a creative little gal and I love to watch her intently concentrating on selected her next color.

Ronan likes to play on the PlayStation3. I think he and his friend Jack mostly play MineCraft. I never have found the interest in video games. I play some solitaire and sudoku. To each his own. While they are busy playing videogames, Pepper McPoodlepants is checking out the front yard. I think Jocelyn had gone out to the car and she is looking for her.

Terry and Tom worked on finishing up the door on Ronan's cabinet in his room. They have rearranged his room and added some storage items from IKEA. It looks very nice and there appears to be space for everything. 

Two nights they all came out to the motorhome and sat around the campfire. One night Ronan brought his friend Jack. I was surprised we didn't have mosquitoes. It was a bit nippy, though, and we all had to put on jackets. We had nice fires and had fun roasting marshmallows. These are special times for sure.

We even went to the park a couple times. There was one birthday party and the kids got to whack a pinata. Fortunately they had filled it mostly with little trinkets and not too much candy, so that was good.

We met two men at the campground who were touring the U.S. on motorcycles. They were from Germany and both spoke very good English. This was not their first trip here and they were enjoying the territory they were seeing this time.

I hate leaving the family, but it was time to move on to Florida. Since we had been broken down for 5 days, we had to drive straight to Brandon's, so we had one very long day of driving and two shorter ones. It wasn't bad, and I'm glad we had the extra time built into the schedule to do this.

Till next time. . .

Dale