Gramma and Grandpa Camp

It's Day Four of "Gramma and Grandpa Camp", the week we're taking care of our Palo Alto grandchildren for a week.  The larger family (the parents) thought it was a bit much for us and recruited Uncle Erik (the kids favorite uncle) to fly in for a week from the UK.  And bless his heart, he came.  They bought a HUGE Lego set "Big Ben" with over 5000 pieces to occupy them all.  Big Ben is now in the final stages of completion but there is also a huge imaginative free style train downstairs.  I've played innumerable games of Connect Four.  The eight year old beat me until she explained her strategy to me and now she wins no matter what.  If I win, it's because she is such a good teacher and if she wins, she wins.  We've been to the Oakland Zoo, the Lawrence Hall of Science, the UC and Tilden Botanical Gardens, and the Steam Train.  I've enjoyed getting to know the children better and find the little joys very rewarding.  Joys like seeing how they love nature and have great patience watching lizards, newts, birds and snakes, hearing the 8 year old singing to herself in the bedroom, seeing their creativity expressed in different ways.  Meals have been fun, all of us sitting at the big table.  The "camp" and all the meals has me really tried out by evening but it's definitely been fun.

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