Ben & Sharley

Monday, September 2, 2025

Forty three years ago at this moment, Lisa was in full on labor and not a happy girl. Sometime around noon, our first born child arrived and we were both ecstatic. Happy Birthday Kira!

Right now Kira and Evan are on the road driving to Auburn, Alabama to drop Evan off at college. It has been a very hard week for her and I hope her and Evan can have a great day even though they are away from her family. They are at Brandons today so I hope she can have a good day.

We just finished a great long weekend. Ben and Sharley were going to bring their family out for the Fourth of July holiday but complications with the foster system prevented them from bringing all of the girls, so this was a makeup day.

They arrived late on Friday evening and went promptly to bed. We started the day Saturday with a pancake breakfast. 

At one point in the morning I heard actual music coming from the piano. When grandkids are visiting, it is usually one of the pre-recorded songs in the piano blasting at full volume but these were simple, but pretty songs. Who knew that ___ could play the piano. I loved it.

After a relaxed morning we headed to the beach. We went to Terra Maar beach which I don’t ever remember going to before. We had to hike down a cool mini slot canyon to get there and while I thought that was the best part of the beach, some of the kids were less than thrilled.

Coming down the trail a group of people heading up the trail got Freddie all freaked out by telling us how dangerous the trail was. That kind of got him off to a bad start, but once Sharley pulled out the kite, he quickly returned to his happy self.

Jack and I would catch waves together. Some times we ended up bumping into each other.

Everyone loves Grandma

The weather was amazing.

Thank goodness for the kite. After that, it didn’t take long before Freddie joined everyone in the fun.

If you get the right water depth, pulling little kids on a board has close to zero friction.

There were some good waves for boogie boarding.

Does Jack look like he loves boogie boarding? He’s pretty good.

Kit would rather stick with the sand.

The weather was amazing, but eventually we were all completely tired out we headed back to the house and mom and I finished up some tasks that needed to be done while Bens family headed to Belmont Park. It sounds like the kids all had a blast.

Kit brought me a stack of books and wanted me to read to her.

The kids have come to associate our house with lemonade and that is the first thing they wanted to do. For the first round of lemonade, Jack, Freddie, ___ and ___ made a double batch of lemonde. A huge portion of that was spread all over the kitchen. For Sunday dinner we made a second batch and that was mostly just ___ and I.

On Sunday while we were at church Ben and his family took the kids to the Delmar beach. Freddie liked that beach much better than the Terra Maar beach.

After dinner we gave the kids several options of things to do and they all opted to head up to the park. We had a lot of fun and stayed there until it started to get dark at which point we headed home. This is when they wanted to do some of the other options we had given them earlier. They were not happy that it was now time for bed.

I love Kits hair in this picture.

There were no more swings available so ___ offered to go doubles with Kit.

Ben is teaching Freddie how he can pump the swing to go higher without needing someone to push him. He caught on rather quickly.

Monday was Labor Day so we had a relaxed morning and then kissed all the kids and said goodbye. It was good to see them.

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Up unit 1974 single women couldn't have a credit card under their own name.

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