The H word at the Hanna´s!

The above picture has nothing to do with this post, except that it was taken the day before the H word (that´s Halloween!) and the young lady in the picture (my granddaughter Eden) took part in HALLOWEEN. Over her striped leotards and striped shirt, she´s sporting a tutu - the ballerina of the moment!

She´s talking on the cell phone to "someone" - she´s the only one who knows who!
And relax, it LOOKS like a real cell phone, and used to OPERATE like a real cell phone,
but has been dead for some time, so it works great for Eden!
She can talk to her heart´s content to whoever she wants.

I know that some of you reading this don´t believe in celebrating Halloween. Most of my Mexican friends and "hermanos" believe it´s an evil holiday, probably because of it´s proximity to the Day of the Dead (Nov. 1 and 2) and because it does contain some similarities.

But yes, I celebrated Halloween this year!

A Methodist Church here in El Paso celebrated with a "Trunk or Treat" event. A number of cars were parked in the parking lot, many of them decorated to the nth degree, and the amazingly dressed up hosts passed out candy, gum, juice, and an assortment of other goodies. In the last car, they passed our fliers inviting folks to their church. A creative way to celebrate Halloween!

The Hanna family brought along a kitty (Maria), Alice in Wonderland (Lluvia) and a ballerina (Eden) to help the folks get rid of some of their goodies!

Too many of their goodies!

An obscene amount of goodies!

And, since we didn´t get our fill of SUGAR at the Trunk or Treat event,
on the way home we stopped for ...

You guessed it!

Ice Cream!

Uncle Ed, Aunt Betty Jo, Uncle Dave and Aunt Pat

Aunt Betty Jo reads with Elia

According to Aunt Pat, Uncle Dave is the "best grandpa in the world." He sure makes the kiddos happy! He not only read to them, he swam with them in the hotel pool, even giving them a few swimming "lessons." And they loved every minute of it! Thanks, Uncle Dave!

The Hulk is attacking Uncle Ed!

Since taking a knitting lesson from Aunt Betty Jo, Josie has been knitting up a storm!

What a nice visit we had with Uncle Ed, Aunt Betty Jo, Uncle Dave and Aunt Pat! They drove all the way down to Chesterton from Traverse City, MI JUST to spend some time with us! Thanks, you guys! It was so fun!

This has nothing to do with the title of this post! Elia participated in a Home School Science Fair. She experimented with growing sugar crystals. Do they grow faster from a seeded string or from an unseeded string? Well? You don´t know?

She did a super job and had so much fun at it!

I peeked into Mike and Kris´ room one afternoon while Del was napping and found TWO nappers! If you look carefully, you can find Del there under all the covers!

Oliver Goldsmith, an English playwright said:
"Our greatest glory consists not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall."

I read that in the book No Longer Alone by Joan Winmill Brown, and have been wanting to share it, so there it is!

But this is Poetry Wednesday, so I need to share a poem. Actually, the above relates a bit. Josie is sitting next to me doing her math. She hates to be told she did something wrong, but hey, our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall, right? "You wrote that 2 wrong - it´s backwards." No problem, she fixed it! "You wrote that 9 backwards, it needs fixing." No problem! Eventually, she´ll get all those numbers right, even though it´s hard and sometimes she "falls."


And here are a couple poems written by little children - I love them! Aren´t kids great?!





Watermelons
By Charles Simic (I guess he´s a child, I´m not sure!)

Green Buddhas
On the fruit stand.
We eat the smile
And spit out the teeth.

(Can you see the smile in that watermelon??)








Run Chicken Run
By Maddie

Run chicken run.
The farmers got the gun
The wife has the oven hot
And your the one.
So run and run
So you dont get served with a bun.

Pretty cute, huh? I´m sure Maddie´s teacher (mother/teacher/father/whoever) will work with her on her grammar, but for now, she´s certainly creative!

Longwood Gardens with the Allems

While with Jeff and Kim and the kiddos, Kim took six of the kiddos and me to Longwood Gardens (if I named it wrong, I apologize - I can´t remember for sure the name!). It was an amazing place and we only saw probably 1/4 of it, since it is so huge.

The Little Engine that Could

All the chiles you could possibly want, and more! Of course these are only ornamental.

Toria, Clara, Ada and Kim

This is just the "restroom hall"! Imagine?? Each door is an individual restroom,
incrediblly decorated, incredibly luxurious. And the hall keeps going and going....

History repeats itself

Glimpses of Fall in Chesterton, Indiana

...And did you notice what hymnal is there on the piano at all times? Yes! Celebremos su gloria! The children are learning Make me an Instrument in Spanish!

A fun visit to the Watershed with Dora Becker and her youngest, Nate. What fun! And of course it never occurred to me to take a photo of Dora, Nate and our gang together! I´m so sorry!

Dora and her family are missionaries to Czech Republic, now in Indiana on Home Assignment. Last time we saw Dora was at Markoma Bible Academy in Tahlequah, OK, when she graduated from high school! She, Beth and Kim were good friends at Markoma! That was a FEW years ago!

Nate was terrified of Lola at first - I mean, Lola wouldn´t hurt a flea - but he finally was able to at least get CLOSE to her! Sometimes it just takes awhile.

What ELSE would you do on a picnic? Elia reads everything in sight, anytime, anywhere. She always has a book with her, just in case...

Learning to Irish Dance. The girls take lessons from Shannon´s sister, Peggy. That´s Shannon´s little guy, Aidan, doing a great job dancing along with the girls.

Practice makes perfect...

Two families came over for "Spanish Class." First we made Pan de Muerto (Day of the Dead Bread). What fun, and how delicious!

Then Kris led the class in learning new vocabulary and learning silly legends from Mexico!

Look at that wonderful bread! Elia and Josie decorated their with colored sugar.

Then we all enjoyed!

Queen of the House!

Lola

The Livovich family is keeping Lola for friends for a year.

And yes, she´s Queen of the House!

She´s fun

She´s cute,

She sometimes drives people crazy with her antics and "accidents"

But we all love her,

And she DEFINITELY loves all of us...

Or anyone who will give her a little attention!

One Fine Day Full

Here´s a silly poem that seems to fit at Halloween, because it´s as ridiculous as some of the crazyHalloween poems I´ve been reading to my grandkids! Or maybe even more ridiculous! Sometimes that´s what Halloween is - ridiculousness! And incredibly silly!

ONE FINE DAY FULL

One fine day in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys got up to fight.
Back to back they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other.

One was blind and the other couldn´t see,
So they chose a dummy for a referee.
A blind man went to see fair play,
A dumb man went to shout "Hooray!"

A paralyzed donkey passing by,
Kicked the blind man in the eye,
Knocked him through a nine inch wall,
Into a dry ditch and drowned them all.

A deaf policeman heard the noise,
And came to arrest the two dead boys.
If you don´t believe this story´s true,
Ask the blind man; he saw it too!

This is for 3 Shades of Blue

This evening when we all "dressed up" to head for the DQ, Josie made me think of 3 Shades of Blue. She definitely was that! Shirt, shorts, shoes and eyes - did they match?? Well, that´s a matter of opinion! It just made me laugh! And of course since she had her shorts on, she had to wear her winter coat. It wasn´t blue, but that´s OK! Four shades is enough for now!!

3 Shades of Blue - and one brown

Yesterday I had the immense privilege of watching my grandsons, Jeffery, Jesse and Austin - and Tyler who is the brown-eyed one! - lead worship at a youth camp. They did an amazing and beautiful job. Can you tell I´m proud of them - in a good way, of course!

Tyler plays the bangos, tamborine and keyboard (but not all at the same time!)
Jesse on the drums, Jeffery on the right, Austin in the middle.

I videoed them as well, but can´t get the videos to play.
If I figure it out, I´ll include one on a later post!