2017 Life Logs, Day 28: Play Day
Date: Saturday, January 28, 2017
Weather: Still Windy and Partly Sunny; High 43, Low 31 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, NH
Today was a play day. I started out with a Zumba class and then I went to Heather’s to see if I could be helpful with projects today. Jed was gone with Sam on an all-day Scout geologic exploration of the Cape and Molly and Joey next door were not home. So it was strangely quiet at the Goldstones. It appeared that the most useful thing I could do was to take Jonah and Ollie to my house to play so Heather could get some things done. But Jonah was not about to leave his momma. So Jonah stayed with Heather and Ollie and I took off with both of his bicycles—the new pedal bicycle he got from Santa and his little wooden strider. We headed to my house to get some lunch, but we spent an hour in the parking lot riding one bike and then the other before heading inside. Once we got on the deck, I pointed out the ducks in the harbor to Ollie. There was one lone Merganser
and a few Buffleheads. He was not familiar with these birds, so I have to get the Goldpebbles over here more often so they can observe harbor life in the winter. After watching the ducks, we finally moved inside for lunch and a little quiet play time. At one point, Ollie was in the kitchen and he picked up a wine cork from my little collection. He reminded me that he and I had taken a wine cork to the beach and released it right after Granddad died. At that time, Ollie said the cork was sending Granddad a message to tell him we love him. Today he just wanted to put the cork in his pocket to help him remember Granddad. Ollie said, “I want to remember him because he was my best friend.” All I could say in return was that Granddad was also my best friend. What a kid! Then we were off for the playground across from the public library downtown. Ollie loves to play in the wooden boats there and was having a good time playing by himself.
But then Heather and Jonah joined us and the two boys had a fantastic time playing together.
We eventually moved from the playground to the circle in front of the school so the boys could ride their bicycles, but before long, Jonah got so cold that he begged to go home. Ollie, however, wanted to stay. So Ollie and I stayed and he rode and rode and rode for another half an hour.
When the sun went down, we finally packed up and went back to my house. We continued to play until 6:00 pm when we got ready to go meet Heather, Jed, Sam, and Jonah at the downtown Chinese restaurant to have dinner and celebrate Chinese New Year. Once we were seated and food started arriving at the table, we saw good friends enter the restaurant. We invited them to join us and we had a great Chinese New Year dinner.
