Day at Bartlet Mall

Dear Noah and Dylan,

     We spent a great day together in memory of Grandpa K at Bartlet Mall, under the shade of a Copper Beech, 30x as large as the tree we had planted for Grandpa down by the pond. Holly and Ryan were there for a couple of hours earlier and you guys came a couple hours later and then stayed until at least 6:00. Everyone brought their own lunch and something to share, chairs, blankets and games. We spent most of the day just talking. Dylan was looking through his collection of baseball cards and Noah was mostly chilling, until we finally got a game of Bocce going.
     This time, instead of boys vs. girls, we divided us up by age. So the two youngest played with the two oldest, making you both a team with me and Grandma Chris against Uncle Don, Auntie Kim, Uncle Joe and your dad. And guess who won? Uh, huh! But we were good winners, after we finished our victory dance anyway. Each of us had our own personal style of tossing the ball on our turn, sometimes providing entertainment, sometimes scoring us a point, and sometimes both! We beat them 21 to 17,  I believe. They did make quite a comeback but still came up a bit short.
 After Bocce, we played Uncle Don's horse racing game. It's a board game on a peg board with little horses on pegs, using a deck of cards and two dice and pennies for betting. Only the betting is all done per toss of the dice and random card selection. It was pretty fun and certainly easy enough to learn.  It was better than Bingo in my book, yet still required zero skill. (other than basic addition, number and letter recognition)  It was fun playing with eight of us. Dylan tried to abscond with all the pennies after the game and then we finally packed it up and went back to our house, not before Uncle Joe took some goofy pictures of us by Grandpa's tree and on the staircase.
     Before you guys headed back home, i helped Dylan clean mud off his sneaker with a spray bottle and then couldn't resist squirting him in the nose when he was bent over watching. That started a spray bottle water fight. Nobody went home dry. I hadn't laughed like that in a couple of weeks. I am so happy I have all of you in my life. I am concerned about a revenge attack of the water bottle, admittedly.
    Loving you to pieces,
Auntie Kim

Holly and Ryan at Grandpa K's beech tree

under the 200 or 300 year old copper beech tree

Jim Carrey II and III

Missing from picture: Auntie Kim (Uncle Don's) and Holly and Ryan, posing at Grandpa Kudym's copper beech tree. 

the life of the party! lol

in deep contemplation, preparing winning strategy for Bocce

The Dynamic Duo, Uncle Don and Auntie Kim!