Best one of all - Nathan and Pawpaw.
Ever since Nathan was a baby, Pawpaw was the grandparent that he was most standoff-ish with. In the past year Nathan has been warming up more, but I'm pretty sure that this trip was the best time these guys had spent together! Pawpaw had gotten a child-size putter (the real kind) for Nathan, and he carried it around all week, although for part of the time he decided it was a weed-eater rather then a golf club.
The favorite place for these kids to play in the house was on the huge staircase. Sarah, in particular, loved trying to climb up and down, really honing her skills while almost giving Gran and me multiple heart attacks.
Nathan's other big breakthrough on this trip was his new-found love for band-aids. I think I had gotten a blister on my foot the day before we left for a trip, and I put on one of the character band-aids from Nathan's untouched stash. From that day forward, multiple times a day, every day, Nathan has asked for a band-aid. During the trip, I think he wanted it wrapped around his fingers for his "boo-boo", but lately he just likes to hold it (completely unwrapped) in his hands and/or stick it on random toys/furniture. So if you come to the house and find a random band-aid somewhere, its almost certainly clean!
One of the other fun things we did on the base was go see / climb on the artillery display. Sarah decided she would use one tank as a slide...
... while Nathan was more concerned with pumping gas into his tank. But let me back up to give a little more perspective...
This was the best tank for climbing and playing on and Nathan certainly loved it. Since we were right across the way from the post headquarters, we stuck around for a little while so that Nathan could hear the cannon that goes off during retreat when they take the flag down for the day. It went so well that the next afternoon we were right there at the headquarters for the ceremony. I was sure that one of the kids would start crying from the super loud canon shot, but both of them were just fine!
If you're interested, here's the video of the ceremony. Always brings me back to my childhood and gives me a warm feeling inside! Unfortunately my camera hand was very unsteady with all the panning and zooming - sorry!
That wraps up memories from our trip. And, of course, I hit all the highlights, not choosing to focus on how defiant and disobedient Nathan was almost the whole trip (honestly I almost cut the trip short because I couldn't handle his behavior), how poorly Sarah slept during the nights and that she decided to go on a nursing strike the whole time. But I did want to briefly mention it in an effort to keep it real and help my future self remember both the joys and trials of the kids at this age!
From Aunt Karen: I love these pictures. I especially love the one of Mark and Nathan. It's perfect! Sarah is so adorable. I printed all of these off to show my friend Betty when I had lunch with her yesterday. She thinks the children are exceptionally beautiful and should be models! What fun to see the kids playing on the tanks. Loved the lowering of the flag ceremony and forgot how you had witnessed that hundreds of times in your youth. So cool. Love to all! Oh, I love Nahan's prayer too. What a good boy!
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