I have now discovered why we, as humans, have our children when we are young and do not wait for the "Golden Years". It takes a lot of energy to keep up with them! I have had to stretch my after dinner naptime to an hour before dinner and two hours after dinner. But, we have had a lot of fun and regardless of what we do, it is always an adventure to watch them. The four of them have been getting along great and seem to include each other in just about everything they do.
Yesterday, we had out Homer adventure. Started out at the City Park playing on all the neat toys and having a picnic lunch. From there we explored the Homer Spit, I pointed out all of the historic sights on the spit that I could remember from my youth, but they were not impressed. Now the ice cream parlor, that was a big hit!
We were sitting out on the boardwalk enjoying our cones, my back was to the bay so I had not noticed the railing around the boardwalk. It was made out pipe, a little rusty, in fact one spot was rusty enough that only the top pipe was in place, the lower pipe had rusted off. As I was busy licking my ice cream and Golden Grammy had disappeared to get some napkins, I heard something behind me and turned around just in time to see Devyn do a complete handstand and one complete turn around the bar. After my heart stopped pounding and she had both feet on the deck, I got up and walked over to look down, yep, it was a good thirty feet to the beach rocks below! I can see her excel in gymnastics! The beach walk along the fishing lagoon provided many treasures of shells, rocks, and one full size crab which now sits on the deck table. I figure, we are going to have to pack light on our trip north to LA since we now have several tons of collections to haul home. Seems to be a lot of sticks, stones and shells. Golden Grammy had to do a little grocery shopping, so we dropped her off and headed to Black Beard Bishop, it the name it is not familiar, that is Bishops Beach. Someone told them that a pirate by the name of Black Beard Bishop buried all of his stolen treasure there. Did not find any of that, but we did discover where the pirates burned all of their hostages! The new nature trail across the wet land was new to me, we also had to explore that. The old leg was a hurtin, but we made it.
Today, we once again explored the river. Wanted to work the dogs in the picnic hole, but there were several fisherman on that hole and I don't think they would take to kindly to two dogs bailing into the river. So we had a picnic downstream and they played in the river. Terry and I was sitting on a log, watching them play along the edge of the river, I heard Kymber and Heather say something about catching little fish and after a bit, I heard Kymber remark that she found a fish. After a bit, she shouted at me as to what kind of fish it was, so I told her to bring it to me so I could see it, she and Heather presented my with a very fine Steelhead Trout smolt about six inches long! They had pronounced it dead by the time they got it to me. They were only in a couple of inches of water so I assumed it was dead when they found it. I asked them if it was moving when they found it and Kymber, she explained to me that it was alive but then it ran into a rock and died! I worked on it several minutes trying to revive it but I am assuming it was most likely dead and the water current was making it move. It received a proper rock grave burial along with a couple of wild flowers. Next time JD goes fishing, me might want to consider taking her to insure he gets a fish. From there, we headed to the beach, the dogs got to swim and we collected another half load of rocks and shells.
Tonight, they are camping out on the decks of the AA with their cousins, it works out well, as Heath set up the tent that they can use the store window to get in and out of their tent, just like an extension bedroom.
Not sure what we are doing tomorrow - but I am sure it will yield a couple of more stories and I hope a few memories for them.