We had a slow morning with lots of coffee, until the afternoon when we went out to the family farm for a gathering commemorate Aunt Erna. She had been cremated so we scattered some of her ashes on a grove near the house where her mother’s (Mom’s paternal grandmother) ashes had also been scattered. The two of them planted many of the trees there.
After that, it was time to eat and hang out with friends and family.
We brought some beating sticks for the boys to play with. They had some fun with them, although they wouldn’t take on the fathers. In the end the most fun was dipping them in the horse watering pool. This was intensely fun for all the kids, especially after they discovered that swinging a wet stick would fling water. Alice, though, liked pulling the wet covering tights off the stick and using it as a washcloth to clean the van.
Corwin had his first intimate experience with gravel, falling hard on his knew on the gravel driveway and getting some serious gouges1. Grandma was able to provide first aid, as Dad thought “tough it out” sufficed as adequate medical care. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking clearly and didn’t get a good picture of it.
Charles had a couple of melt downs that led to hiding in the van, mainly involving getting whacked a bit too hard with beating stick, but I managed to get him back out and interacting. Alice had a major screaming meltdown because she didn’t get to be second in the line for going down a slide. But later the dolls came out and all was OK.
Later the boyen got to go up on the roof of one of the barns which they thought was very cool. No one ended up falling off which was good.
Wall of Pink Cuteness
1 To match the big elbow scrape you can see in this picture.