great grandma r.

today we spent the morning visiting with great grandma r. we got to her place a little past the kids' regular bedtime and they had been up quite a bit later than bedtime the night before so we were in a hurry to get them down and weren't able to really visit at all.  unfortunately, we weren't as successful at getting them to bed quickly as we would have liked but they handled it like troopers today.

we met for breakfast at the dining room.  it was delicious!  we had omelets, pancakes, waffles, fruit and toast. then we walked around and visited the large bird cage and fish tank in one of the lobbies.

great grandma pulled out some photo albums and showed the kids a few pictures of nana when she was a baby and then a girl along with her siblings.  we had a nice visit catching up on all of the family news and all of the visitors great grandma has had in the past month.

this is a picture of a local bridge that derek made her.  it is three-dimentional layered paper he drew, painted and cut out (i think it is stacked with double stick foam tape for the 3-d effect) and then poured a clear resin over it to protect it.  apparently he built the frame too.  very cool!

manning was in another happy mood and was a little too happy to take a nice picture with great grandma.  he is cracking up while sucking his thumb in the second picture.

then we went back to the dining room for lunch.  manning found that the ice cream was better for dipping his celery than in the peanut butter so mason gave it a try too.

they had an art exhibit of things created by the residents and there was some very lovely works. and we had a nice time taking the 'long' walk around to see some of great grandma's favorite things and places. just as we were getting back to her room, manning was willing to walk too.

and then it was time for us to hit the road.  the idea was to have manning nap the whole way home (4-1/2 hours).  it would have worked too if we had not had to stop for gas.  turning the car off woke him up.  oh well.

we had a very nice visit with great grandma, who is 94 by the way, and were very happy to have been able to make it out there.  love.