My dear friend, Rachel, and her husband were off for an evening away to celebrate their anniversary; consequently, I got to host their three beautiful girls for the afternoon before shuttling them off to their Aunt's house for the night... if I could walk around with a voice recorder, I'd copy it, package it and sell it to YOU because this post will only give you a taste of the joy these six FANTASTIC children brought me throughout the last several hours...
First of all enjoy some shots of these hooligans - you know me, I love shots.
This evening as I was driving the Kalous girls to their Aunt's home, Ava exclaimed, "YOUR van is fast!" "How many is your van, Krista?" She leaned to the right and called up to the front of the van, "Our's isn't very fast cause its 10. How many is your's?!"
"Uh... this van is 8," as I looked in my rearview mirror and caught Ava's very calculated face looking back at me. She leaned back and looked out her window as though she had just figured it out...
"Yep. That's why its so fast, Krista... yours is faster because its 8. Ours is 10 and its not this fast."
(Note for the reader: Rachel drives a '99 Honda Odyssey and I drive an '01 Honda Odyssey - the ONLY difference between our vans is the exterior color)
I chuckled to myself as I thought about her mental picture of how 'old' her van is and how 'young' our van is and how that equates to human aging. The best part was yet to come though...
I turned on 530 AM radio real quick as I passed a roadside sign alarming drivers of highway closures. Ava spoke up immediately and said, 'hey! Krista?! What is this?' (referring to the AM radio's scratchy, barely audible vocals)
"This tells me where the highway is closed and where the construction is happening..."
Again, Ava took a deep breath and shrugged her shoulders as though the information shouldn't be so shocking. "Our van doesn't have this kind of radio... its older and it doesn't have this. My Mom can't find out where the construction workers are working when she's driving." I laughed to the point of tears... to myself, of course, because her heart was set on this reality that she had discovered and I couldn't tell her differently. It was too fantastic and I didn't want to blow it.
The rest of the car trip included dinosaur sounds, pig 'oinking' and I taught them how to squeal like a pig. You're welcome, Rachel.
Other great moments during the day included:
Ava: "Krista, I was born from a green egg, right?"
Harper: "I love you too." (I hadn't even said I loved her! So sweet.)
The girls loved the Spanish version of the song, "Reflection", from the movie Mulan.
There was a LOT of pirates and princesses played at our house today...
They painted rocks found in the back yard... they picked blackberries (images above)... took naps and quiet times - which I walked in on and found a barely alive patient (Ava) being helped by a nurse (Katie) as William stood around assisting. I guess the scarf over Ava's face and the 'Little People' plastic road sign sticking out of her mouth was healing because before long they were out of quiet time and running around again jumping, squealing, talking over each other and dancing...
Oh, here's some more shots:
What a good day.
1 comment:
Aaahhhh .... that was fantastic!! Ava has a real fascination with the age of our van, we won't even talk about how old Jeremy's car is ... Thanks for making it possible for us to take off and celebrate our anniversary without having to think twice about how the kids were doing - when I told Harper it was time to go to the Schei's she headed straight for the door and I had to call her back so I could give her a hug and kiss. You two have an anniversary coming up and we plan to reciprocate!
Rachel
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