Grandpa Comes to Town

Grandpa Fox came to town this week for Faith's baptism.  With much anticipation, the kids and I  picked him up from the airport Friday morning.

The first item of business was giving Faith her traditional 8 year-old gift from Grandma Fox.  A Madame Alexander literary character doll and book.  Faith got Anne of Green Gables.  Grandma Fox was not able to accompany Grandpa.  Her health is such that traveling has become very difficult and although we miss her very much, we're glad she is more comfortable at home.
Faith loved her doll and now I know what we'll do for our next read aloud.

 He listened to Faith read the first little bit.  He was very patient and helped her understand words she didn't know. Then Cannon got a turn to read to Grandpa.

Next the children took to the tree to show Grandpa one of their favorite places to be.

With these little guys is one of my favorite places to be.

Grandpa took one look at our death-trap of a trampoline and he knew what his weekend project needed to be-- replacing the trampoline.  The metal structure was sound and were all but about 10 missing springs, but there was a very large split on one side steadily growing towards the middle.  Talk about dangerous.  So Grandpa took the kids to go locate a new trampoline surface.

Then he and the kids spent a while that afternoon putting it all back together.  I do feel the children are much safer now and I feel a little bad that I didn't do something about it sooner.  I hadn't been out back for a little while and didn't realize just what bad shape it was in.  I'm grateful no one was hurt before Grandpa saved the day.

Grandpa took the kids to lunch and he let George do the honors of choosing where they would eat.  Everyone's suggestions were put into a hat and George drew out the winning entry.

After the baptism on Saturday we enjoyed taking Grandpa to Elinor's choir concert that was in conjunction with a great singing group called Octapella.  If you're interested Elinor is top row, 6th in on the left.

For most of last week before Grandpa came we had another house guest.  Cousin Talitha stayed with Bethany while her family was visiting Utah from Spokane Washington.  Talitha's oldest sister had her first baby and the family came to see the new arrival and help out.  Talitha is one sweetheart of a girl and she is welcome in our home anytime.  As expected, there were some late nights for these girls, and my Bethany found the routine of life dull and restrictive as compared to the thrill of constant play with a cousin, but they had a grand time together.