Grandparents!!!

Yay for blogger's new interface!!!  They finally updated and now everything works again.  Things I had been missing like spell check and being able to change the alignment of text and pictures etc!!!  I'm so happy!  Plus now I can do things like upload a ton of pictures at once instead of only 4 which makes it so much easier to get them in the order I want them and takes WAY less time! 

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Ok, so back to the real point of this post!  Yesterday we went to my Bartel Grandparent's house for the afternoon.  I always love watching my boys play with other people, but especially seeing Luke and my Grandpa is lots of fun!  They really get each other going.

 This beautiful Sunflower from in the ditch on the way to my grandparent's house.  I think I'll use it to make some cards.  (-:

 My grandpa has some trains that he already had out when we got there and Luke had a great time playing with him and the trains!  Unfortunately they are really touchy and after about 10-15 minutes they suddenly wouldn't work anymore, but I think Luke really enjoyed getting to see a train set that runs "by itself"!   

Ok, I know this picture is too big for it to be centered correctly, but it's one of my favorites from the day, so I wanted everyone to be able to see it!

Love a baby in overalls!

My Grandma said she thought this was only the second time she had gotten to hold Aaron, which is terrible!!!  She has seen him many more times than that, we have had lots of get-togethers and we go to the same church, but she always makes sure that everyone else gets a turn before she takes one.  I guess we need to get together more just us so that she and grandpa will get enough turns too!

After playing inside on all three levels of the house where Grandma keeps toys we went outside for a bit.  We kicked a ball around, played on the swings, and then went for a walk by the stream and Luke threw sticks into the little bit of water that hadn't dried up. 

My Grandparents have a very large property, Grandpa said originally it was 30 acres but they sold all but about 6.5 of it to their current neighbors and Grandma's sister and her family.  Usually it is always green and beautiful but the drought this year has really made it impossible for even my grandparents, the best gardeners I know, to keep it all alive and lush like normal.  Hopefully most of it will come back next year, but Grandma said she knows there will be patches where all the grass is dead and some of her trees and shrubs have probably died. 

Most of the creek was bone dry, but there were a couple of deeper spots that had a bit of water left and they were all covered with those little green water plants so that at first Luke thought there wasn't any water.  We threw in a rock to show him that there really was water there and he thought that was really neat so we spent most of the rest of our outdoor time looking for sticks for him to throw in. 

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My grandparents are super givers.  They were with my Great Grandma almost everyday while she was in the nursing home before she died and when she still lived at home they were there a lot of the time too helping Great Grandma take care of herself and the place.  They always have a huge garden and they give a lot of it away to their children and grandchildren.  They also come and work in the garden's of their children and grandchildren.  If there is any kind of work project they are there, and they are excited to do it.  They are also very involved in serving at the church too, though not in the flashy roles that most people notice.  They are behind the scenes kind of people, and they get embarrassed if you talk too much about how much they do for others.  I hope that I will be able to be there for my kids and grand kids the way they have for us, but I already know that their strengths are not my strengths and I will never be able to match up to their gardening or some of the other things they do.  Mostly though I just love them soooo much, and I know that they love me.  That is one thing I can give to my kids and grand kids someday, they will always know how much I love them, even if I don't come garden for them!