The silence is deafening

My daughter and her family left for a short New York City visit on Friday. From there, they'll go back to Europe. It's hard to say goodbye. I don't post recognizable pictures of my grandkids on this blog but I think you can get an idea of some of our activities from these pictures.

V loves cooking. Any time I was in the kitchen, she wanted to be in there on her stool, helping. Reminds me of someone else who was always in the kitchen. Her mommy was my best kitchen helper. M is working on an art project at the Crayola Factory. It's not really a factory but they pour some crayons in a little mini-factory and then there are oodles of art activities to do. It was fun but he (and the rest of the guys) preferred the upstairs museum on canals. My daughter and I loved the store best, believe it or not. Neither of us are big shoppers but they had Crayola stuff there which you can't buy anywhere else. Totally amazing. Plus they have the world's largest crayon (it's blue.)

My favorite V prank was not the goldfish and presser foot. It was stuffing Playdoh into Grandpa Bond's tuba mouthpiece. He had to soak it to get it out. She also gave me the "I'm not playing with scissors" line. She cannot say "r" or "l" but has an amazing vocabulary. Only her brother could understand her when she said that at the end of the Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader does something "pwopiat." Read "appropriate." My daughter thinks this is because she hears "your behavior is not appropriate" a lot. For those of you who know the 10th article of faith of the LDS church, try it substituting all the r's and l's with w's. It's a wiot. It's also amazing that V can recite the whole thing word for word.

E was a barrel of laughs. She makes amazingly cute faces and I managed to catch several of them with my camera. She does cute nose crinkles and pulls her mouth up into a little bow. She also has a tiny dimple over one corner of her mouth. She tried very hard to learn creep while visiting but didn't quite get it. M's wiggly tooth also didn't fall out in America and so he'll have to wait and see if there is a tooth fairy in Europe. His friend "Sven" thinks so but M is not sure.


I can't decide whether it was more fun watching M watch Star Wars for the first time or helping his dad blow off some very mild fireworks. He is a serious K'Nex and Lego builder and he spent a lot of time on the sun porch making things. He and I learned to play UNO (I had completely forgotten) and he also ran my sewing machine with his mom's help. He quickly got tired when she wouldn't let him run it at high speed all the time.

We had a great time. The house is so empty now. Michael took me out to see the latest Harry Potter film after a few hour's rest yesterday. We enjoyed it although it was shocking how much they left out: Bill, Fleur, the Dursleys, the Prime Minister, Scrimgeour, Percy, Morfin, Hepzibah Smith and even, sadly, Celestina Warbeck. An artist named Katerina has done "A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love" though for those of us who wanted it in the movie.