A Visit from James

The last time our nephew James came to visit, our "troll hair" tree was in all it's glory. This year unfortunately an infestation of stink bugs eviscerated all the blooms.  And it rained much of the weekend. What to do with a 9 year old during a weekend in the rain?  Elisha had been up north visiting her grandparents so she brought her younger cousin James home with her, gave him a tour of her apartment at the University and delivered him to our house. She also brought her boyfriend so we made a couple pizzas and visited.  Elisha and Brooks took off for other obligations so we took James to Rita's ice as he had never been there before.  Later in the evening we watched Marley and Me.  James brought the movie with him and none of us had seen it.  I do not recommend it and personally skipped the last 15 minutes for fear that I would begin sobbing uncontrollably. The next morning we were off to the IHop for red velvet pancakes. Then we went to the High Road Gallery art gallery so James could see the chicken sculptures made out of silverware and his portrait which was hanging on the wall as a part of an art exhibit in which we participated. After that it was off to the Battelle Darby Creek Nature Center and then later to the creek itself to do some seining. We got a brief break in the storms while at the creek but found little in the way of critters as the water was up and were nearly struck by lightening on the way back.  Let's just say that the storm caught us by surprise and it was close enough that the light from the strike momentarily blinded us and we didn't even get a 1 count from the thunder to the lightening strike meaning it was right on us. Luckily James had no clue what had just happened and thought it was great fun when his uncle Andy told him to run! We got back home from the creek around 7:30 pm, showered the poison ivy and other assorted creek scum off our bodies, ate and got to bed as everyone was exhausted.  Sunday we had a leisurely morning at which time James ran around the yard in his underwear and helped me with the rabbits, tried his hand at feeding Pipsqueak, and then returned to the living room to visit with Tafari, our lovebird with whom he is fascinated with, and watched cartoons. Are you tired yet? Well there is more... We left for the mall at 10:30 am and took him to the bookstore so he could choose some books for his upcoming birthday. He is into those American Chiller books by Rand and the newer Star Wars characters.  We then ate lunch and took him to the Apple store, which he does not have in his home town, and where he played on the ipads for an hour while I debated on whether to buy an ipad mini or not. Not. After that we headed to Mansfield to meet his parents half way as he had a 4 H meeting at 4 pm (he shows chickens and is really quite the expert on them for his age). We stopped at the Gorman Preserve and took a short hike to kill some time before our meeting.  DH and I got home at 3:30 and probably looked like two deer caught in the headlights. We took a 12 mile bike ride and went to bed at 9:30.  Suffice it to say that we don't have the energy that we once had but it was a fun weekend.

Pizza

 

Rita's Italian Ice

 

IHop

 

Art Gallery

Nature Center

Creeking

 

Helping with the rabbits

Offering food to Pip

Fun with the lovebird

The Apple Store

Gorman Nature Preserve