A Week of being Gram and Grand-dude

When we first dreamed about names that our grandchildren would call us, we came up with very traditional "Gram" and "Grandad." But several months ago, our two-year-old granddaughter called Mark Grand-dude. When everyone laughed at her new name, she kept repeating it. So it looks like Mark has officially been renamed. 

We recently flew to Kansas City to do some baby-sitting while our son and daughter-in-law went snow skiing. Because of the winter weather delaying our arrival by four days, we also changed our departure so we could stay for eight days. We're soaking in good grandbaby time for a week of grandparenting!

Eli is now four months old, and he doesn't even look like the same baby we saw the last time we were here two months ago! Denisa thinks he's as pretty as the Gerber baby. Grand-dude pointed out that he is handsome--not pretty.

Carter is two-and-a-half years old, and she really doesn't like us taking pictures of her. When we point the camera her way, we usually get, "No photos please!" from her. At least she's polite about her dislike for taking pictures. But we occasionally get a sneaky picture when she's busy with a cooking project with Gram.

She's especially good with the clean up duties when we are finished making something like a cheesecake.

Arriving late because of all the weather delays, we only had the two of them by ourselves for one day. That one day made us appreciate how tiring it is to be responsible for two little ones. It's been a long time since we had two children this age. Eli might look innocent enough, but he needs continuous bottle-feedings and diaper changes (and he is an expert at soaking us when we are trying to get a new diaper in place). All this can wear out a couple of old wanderers. Hats off to their parents for keeping up with this schedule all the time!

The rest of the week we helped with child care, and concentrated on getting lots of snuggles and having fun. We had a couple days of nice weather, so we enjoyed the park. Now with two grandchildren we each have one to swing. Double the fun!

Even though it's a warm day here, they still have remnants of last week's snow storm.

They've had a cold winter in the Kansas City area, as evidenced by their back yard pond that is still frozen. While it was thawing, we could see something's foot prints that walked all the way across on the ice.

On the warmest day of our stay, we took Eli for his first trip to the zoo. He looks a little worried about his big sister's ability to drive the animal safari jeep in the welcome center. The orangutan in the front seat seems happy, but all the back seat passengers look worried.

We visited the real orangutans, and took a group photo by the statue out front.

We haven't been to the zoo in a while, and Kansas City has a good one! We spent a nice afternoon with the elephants,

and the reptiles (and their corresponding statues).

Kansas City has a very nice indoor penguin exhibit, and it was lunch time at the penguin display.

Carter got to see the larger emperor penguins up close as they swam up to the glass. Her reaction to this close-up view was, "He almost poked me!"

When entering the Australia exhibit, we had to walk through an additional gate. That's because the kangaroos are not fenced in. It was fun seeing them hop down the same trail where we were walking.

We've been taking lots of pictures of birds on our hikes in south Texas, so it was fun to get a few bird photos at the zoo.

It's even more fun to get pictures of our granddaughter talking to the colorful lorikeets.

Their zoo pass includes free rides on the carousel, but Carter is still working up her courage to ride on those wild animals that go round and round.

We walked all the way to Africa, only to find that Gram's favorite animals--the giraffes--don't come out until it is 70 degrees by noon. That's not going to happen any time soon in Kansas City, so we made the very long walk back towards the entrance. We got in over four miles today--most of it while Grand-dude was carrying one of our grandchildren. To honor his tired arms, we include a picture taken in the shadow of Grand-dude's favorite animal--the polar bear.

The week of grandparenting flew by, and we're always sad when it's time to leave our children and grandchildren. It was a week of good quality time with this precious family. 

While we love hiking in scenic areas, we also are blessed to get to spend time with some special family members during our life on the road. Our granddaughter got a new motor home toy while we were visiting. She's practicing with it for the time when she'll get to travel with Gram and Grand-dude in our motor home!