Hi, everyone!
It’s hard work for a little lion, keeping up with James and Thomas! Now that they are a year older than the last time they visited here, they do much more advanced play with Grandma and Grandpa’s toys! Look at all the new ways James found to play with the circus set! I didn’t even know the circus animals could stand on each other! James is also building very complicated airplanes with the Legos!
On Monday, James and Thomas started attending Peacemakers at Grandma and Grandpa’s church. This is James’ third year, and Thomas is old enough to go this year, too! Grandma and James started a big project, too — making a new Lion-san book! James wanted to know how to make one, so he and Grandma did one together. After they decided on the story, they printed out the pages together. The printer isn’t very fast, so James played Super Mario while he waited for each page to print. Once all the pages were printed, James and Grandma trimmed them to size. On Tuesday, after Peacemakers, James and Grandma went to the Fedex store to laminate the pages and trim them again. My Fedex friend Alex-san bound the book copies right away so James and Grandma could bring them home!
Once the book was done, James had time to do more building with the Legos. Since the dining room table was clear after the Lion-san book pages were trimmed, there was space to make a jigsaw puzzle of Thomas the tank engine!
On Wednesday, after Peacemakers, Grandma and Grandpa and I took James and Thomas to the Strong Museum. The helicopter cockpit isn’t there this year, but Thomas enjoyed some of his old favorites: model cars on the drag race track and driving the Sesame Street taxi. James made a big design on the Duplo wall and found some new friends to help him finish it.
After that, we went to the beanstalk so James and Thomas could climb. They went around and around! As usual, we finished with a ride on the carousel! Thomas still needs Grandma to ride with him, but James is big enough to help me ride!
Last weekend, Joe-san and Nancy-san brought Tilly and Moose-san out to Sodus to visit James and Thomas and Aunt Kara and Grandma and Grandpa and me. Saturday morning was rainy, but Grandpa looked at the weather radar and told us that it wasn’t raining at Burnap’s Farm Market! Grandma and Aunt Kara and Nancy-san took James and Thomas and me and my friends to play there! James and Thomas are really good climbers now! After they played in the train locomotive, they climbed on top and got all the way to the caboose without coming down! Moose-san and Tilly and I needed help just to meet them at the end of the train!
Guess what? We found a four-leaf clover on the Burnap play lawn! Moose-san picked it for good luck, but it blew away in the wind! When we got back from the farm market, Thomas and James put on their life jackets so they could go down to the deck and look at the water level. It’s down a little bit more, but still not low enough so Grandpa can get the powerboat out for a ride!
It was rainy the end of last week, but Saturday afternoon was nice weather. That was good, because Grandma and Grandpa were hosting the choir party! James watched Beatles songs on the iPad while we were waiting for the guests to arrive. It was fun to see so many of my choir friends and travel buddies at the party! The food was yummy, especially the birthday cake and homemade ice cream! Tilly and Moose-san and I made sure everybody got some!
We had a pretty sunrise on Sunday, and the weather was nice enough to go the the beach at Sodus Point. There isn’t as much beach as most years, because the high water is covering a lot of the sand! James and Thomas had snacks, then they went swimming with Nancy-san and Aunt Kara. James got very cold in the water, so Moose-san and Tilly and I helped Nancy-san wrap him up in a towel and warm up in the sun!
When we got back from the beach, I showed Tilly and Moose-san the flowers that are blooming. I really like the summer lilies — both the cultivated ones and the wild ones! After that, James showed us Lego construction videos on the iPad. Building a complicated Lego set takes a long time, even with a speeded-up video!
Last night, after we came back from Sodus, there was a big thunderstorm in the middle of the night. It woke James up, but Thomas slept right through it! Today James and Thomas started their second week of Peacemakers. They had homework to do, answering questions about friends! When their homework was done, they drew pictures on the driveway with outdoor chalk. James even drew me into one of his pictures! We’ve had so much rain, I wonder how long it will be before their artwork washes away?
Love,
Lion-san
Keeping up is a hard job but someone needs to do it! We all had a good time at Sodus Bay. Tilly even came to Maine this time. I guess it got hot enough in NY to want to go to Maine. She spent the trip up comforting Nancy-san during the thunder storm in Nashua. Moose-san seemed to like it. We had rain again last night. Moose-san suggested that Tilly go in swimming last night But she prefers to sit in the window with Moose-san and watch.