School's out for the summer!

After traveling full-time in our motor home for nine years, we've settled into our home near our oldest son's family. We're glad to see our two grandchildren often during the school year. But when school's out for the summer, we get to see them even more!

Our son works full-time, and our daughter-in-law works half-time. So we were officially half-time care-givers when school was out. That included transporting Carter to swim team practice three mornings each week, and going to her swim meets.

Sometimes, we enjoyed a picnic in the park after swim practice.

Since she had more time on her hands, Carter practiced the piano more. Denisa is her piano teacher, and we put together a fun group of songs for her to play and sing for an appreciative audience at her first recital. Gram refitted a black cocktail dress into a recital dress, and we made an edible keyboard dessert. That's two-layers of brownies framing a keyboard made of white and dark chocolate kit-kat bars.

Everyday at Gram and Grandude's includes an ice cream break.

We also did field trips and hikes. We couldn't take any pictures, but we especially enjoyed the tour at the Amazon Fulfillment Center. They showed us how they handled all those arbitrary items that we bought one day and they delivered the next. Also, our favorite hiking spot is just a few miles from our house, and we always find wildlife. This was a box turtle that immediately closed his box when we arrived.

We also learned about the foamy liquid found on some of the plants along the trail. That foam is left from the spittle bug that lays her eggs in the middle of that spit.

We play lots of games, and this summer brought some new ones to our game shelf--like Googley Eyes, Go to the Head of the Class, Don't Wake Daddy, and Don't Step on the Poop. 

This summer we also built a ninja course in our basement for this five-year-old. Eli is a rock climber, and he can crank through a series of swinging hand-over-hand bars . . .

and maneuver across an 8-foot I-beam like a ninja.

Many days, we would bike the five miles on the lovely trail that connects our house to their house.

We also bought season passes to Worlds of Fun--the local Six Flags amusement park.

Carter loves a good scrambler ride . . .

while five-year-old Eli loves every ride--the faster the better. His 42-inch-height means that he can't go on the biggest roller coasters, so he has incentive to eat good and grow taller by next summer.

We spend some time in Snoopy Land, where the cartoon characters give out hugs.

Every trip we have a tradition that includes rides on the carousel.

When it gets too hot for rides, we head to the adjacent Oceans of Fun. The two children absolutely love the wave pool!

Those smiles make staying close to home for part of the summer so much fun! But we have a trip planned that will take us on the road again for the hottest months of July and August. We're anxious to tell you all about it. We'll be visiting more of these Six Flag parks on our trip. While Six Flags recently sold Kansas City's Worlds of Fun, our season pass was purchased before that transaction. So we can use our pass to visit all the Six Flags parks in the midwest. That will take us on an interesting route home from our planned tour of the five great lakes. So stay tuned as we load up the trailer and head out for the Five Great Lakes/Six Flags tour of 2026!