Lovely Saturday

John's Grandfather died on Thursday. He was 95 years old. Wow. He was a lovely man - I wish I'd picked his brain about gardening, but the last time I spent any time with him was before I knew I enjoyed gardening!

John flew home to be with his family this morning and after the kids an I dropped him off at the airport, we decided to go by my Grandma's house to visit. So we called when we were about five minutes away and said, "Can we come by?" Of course, the answer was, "Of course!" She only lives about 15 minutes from us, but we don't seem to be in her neck of the woods too terribly often. We got there and piled out of the car. The kids played (and fought over) her mega blocks and Barbie car for a while, then they headed out to the HUGE backyard where they played until their faces were pink and they had little beads of sweat all over their foreheads.

So, then we invited Nani Dot (that's what we call her) to lunch with us. We picked up tacos at Taco Bell and brought them to our house to eat. Again, the kids played outside and she and I walked through our garden. After that, we packed up the kids again and went to the library. I hadn't been to the newly remodeled library in her town, and it was GREAT! We got lots of books, DVDs and books with tapes/CDs for Holly Grace to listen to. She can't read yet, but enjoys those, "When you hear this sound {DING}, turn the page" books. It was interesting that Nani Dot (80 years old) showed US how to use the self-checkout computer. What a lady! We had a great time with her and we were thankful to get to spend part of the day with her.

The whole reason for our trip to the library was Jack's current obsession with geology. We got five juvenile non-fiction books on geology. We worked on his geology beltloop for Cub Scouts a while back and he took quite an interest in it. Then, this week at Cub Scout Twilight Camp, they had a geologist come and talk to the boys. They earned their geology pin and got samples of all different kinds of rocks. So Jack officially has a rock collection now. Before it was just an unofficial rock collection - two gallon-sized ziploc bags that he had collected on his last trip to Grammy and PawPaw's house. John's excited because the geologist at Twilight Camp said that Geologists are in the 4th highest-paid profession in the U.S. (behind doctors, lawyers, and something else that John couldn't remember).

Anyway, after the library, I thought about how this is how learning should be! Jack is fascinated with Geology right now. Well, we'll go to the library and help him pick out some books and then we'll capitalize on that interest. Even if it's just a passing interest, that's fine. This is why I love [partially] homeschooling our kids. Summer seems so much more "doable" now.