Wading Pool, Airplanes and Chalk Drawing

If "Variety is the Spice of Life", then being in the company of a two-year-old provides lots of spice. Yesterday afternoon we walked to the neighborhood park about three blocks from Lucy's house. (I haven't forgotten that Lucy has parents, Rodney and Gretchen) - It's just easier to type "Lucy".

For those of you who may not know, Gretchen is our fourth child, and third daughter. She is married to Rodney and Lucy Marie is their daughter. Lucy's middle name is the same Gail's mother's middle name. Gretchen moved to Seattle in 1997, met Rodney and subsequently Lucy was added to our family.

Now, back to this post. Two dogs live at Lucy's house. Jack is sixteen years old and came to live with Rodney during Rodney's college years. Jack is getting very feeble, blind and deaf. He is living out his life as the senior member of a very loving family. Murphy was adopted by Gretchen when he was five months old, not too long after she moved to Seattle. He is a Golden Retriever/German Shepherd mix. Murphy didn't really interact with Lucy until she started crawling and walking; and now he certainly is her dog. She climbs on him, tries to ride him and just generally gets along well with him. And he is very tolerant of her. She leads Murphy down the sidewalk all by herself. As you can see from this picture, she is leading Murphy. He slowly trots along and she runs behind holding his leash. If she so much as tugs on his leash, he stops and waits for her to start again. They really do have a unique relationship.





Lucy loved playing with her cousin, Erin, in the wading pool.




Today we went to the King County Airport to see the display of planes celebrating the airport's 80th anniversary. Since grandpa has such an interest in airplanes, Gretchen thought he might really enjoy this. Here's a few pictures of the day.

Lucy following Grandpa up into a plane


Erin and Gretchen dressed in part of the Airport firefighter's gear. Hope we don't need them in a emergency.


Lucy and a firefighter in the cab of the fire truck


Grandpa at the controls of a small aircraft


Lucy in the same plane Grandpa had been in; listening to the chatter from the tower


The Chalk Corner in the children's area



Erin and Lucy drawing with chalk around Gretchen



Lucy wanted Grandpa to draw around her feet



Not much else to report for today. Nap for the toddler, played a new game with Erin, Rodney cooked steaks for supper, had S'mores for dessert. Gretchen, Rodney and Erin have gone to a park to see an outdoor movie, so Grandpa and Grandma are babysitting. Lucy is sleeping and Grandma is getting this post done. Sorry about the sizing of the pictures. Not sure what happened, but I uploaded some directly to the blog and some were copied from Web Albums. Please forgive the different sizes. I'll do better next time.

More later.....