Sunday, October 08, 2006

Birds Of A Feather

Yesterday, Ian and Max and I made the trek down to Riverside and back for Ian's grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary celebration. Max is a seasoned traveler by now, and weathered the flights with his good cheer unruffled. We had a really wonderful day. It was a nice opportunity to admire Ian's grandparents' amazing accomplishment of sixty years together, and to enjoy being with the family that is the fruit of those sixty years. Max and his cousin Joseph had yet another opportunity to run amok together, which of course means that we have yet another opportunity to post the photographic fallout on this blog.

Like most houses that do not shelter babies full time, Ian's grandparents' home is full of fantastic opportunities for baby mischief. After herding/corralling/reprimanding both boys for awhile, Jean (Ian's sister and Joey's mom) and I decided to take the babies outside, where the scope for trouble is not necessarily less, but the possibility of breaking stuff is at least minimized. After exploring for a little while, Joseph decided to help out his great-grandparents by doing a little gardening for them. He repeatedly tried to prune their flowers for them, and was baffled by his mother's reluctance to allow him to perform this chore.

Max appeared to be crawling vigorously around the walkways while Joseph and his mother argued about the merits of Autumn pruning, but clearly he took in the entire debate, and was firmly on Joey's side. While Grandma and Aunt Jean were distracted by Joey, Max attempted to finish what Joey had started. Most of the flowers survived nicely.

Naturally, once you have trimmed and pruned and eaten all the stray leaves on the lawn, you're going to want to do a little watering. The only thing standing between Riverside and a major flooding incident was the fact that neither Max nor Joseph figured out where the hose turned on and off, or how to work the sprinkler.

Efforts to bring chaos into an otherwise orderly backyard complete, Max, Joseph, and Phil (their granddad), had a photographic destiny to fulfill indoors. Elaine (Ian's mom) made this shirt for Phil when Ian and Jean were little. She got some extra material, meaning to make matching outfits for Ian and Jean. Time apparently marched on, and she never got around to making Ian and Jean anything, but she was only off by one generation. Look how cute they all are. Max noticed that his shirt matched the others' about fifteen minutes after putting it on. He found it fascinating. He kept pulling his own shirt up so he could see it, then pointing to Joey and Phil. This picture is one of many of the trio in their team uniforms, but is the one that has all three making the closest thing to a smile.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

that last one is absolutely priceless

Anonymous said...

Thank you Chelsa--it's all priceless! Truly a wonderful day.

Anonymous said...

Love all the pics! Loved seeing all of you and the relatives!