Afternoon Delight

I know there is some connotation associated with the song of the same title as this blog post. I'm not implying anything other than a delightful afternoon.

I've mentioned before that String Bean has some foster grandparents. Neither my folks nor Mr. Bean's live nearby. At best, it is a 12 hour drive or a 7 hour flight for one or the other of our parents to make it. As you may imagine, we don't get a lot of visits from either set of String Bean's grandparents.

Well, Uncle John (foster grandpa) and "Aunt Connie (foster grandma) have a young adult son, who we refer to as Uncle Rob. Rob requested an afternoon with our String Bean and we settled on today as being the best day in our schedule to make it work.

Mr. Bean and I enjoyed a movie (Up) and dinner followed by ice cream. From the squeals we received when Uncle Rob dropped off String Bean, we knew she missed us. Aunt Connie and Uncle Rob took her to a local farm that had a pumpkins and a petting zoo. String Bean decorated Mr. Potato Head style a pirate pumpkin. She ate a lot of food and capped the evening with ice cream and the play land at McDonalds. What almost-two-year-old wouldn't LOVE that playdate?!

When all was said and done, we spent about $30 on our afternoon. If we'd had to pay for childcare (and if we had gone to the regular movie theater instead of the $1.75 a seat theater), we would have spent about $90 for the afternoon. Can't beat that deal.

Thanks, Rob and Connie!

Kick, Crunch, Snap

Today's afternoon with our friend Aimee:

Button the coat.

Strap on the hat.

Kick a ball.

Crunch leaves.

Snap the sticks.

Run across the lawn.

Giggle uncontrollably.

Play hide-and-seek.

Enjoying the fall weather with String Bean.

Visitation

My friend, Cheri, is in the hospital. She had a low blood pressure but high pulse episode and they took her in for observation. The bottom line (as of this post) is they think it is just stress related and haven't found a medical reason for it, yet. Better safe than sorry.

String Bean and I got the e-mail about her hospital stay this morning at 9 am. (She wrote it at 6:00 am after the cardiologist visited with her.) We had a playdate scheduled (with my co-blogger Amy's kids and some other friends), so following the playdate around noon we visited with Cheri. We were her first visitors! I hope she got a lot more this afternoon.

Let this be fair warning to all my friends: If I end up in the hospital for ANY reason, I need visitors!