The Rest of the Story ~

After we left the house in Grayslake, we spent another week with our oldest daughter and her family. We  also enjoyed a nice lunch with Kathy B., a blogging friend, and her husband. It was very fun to meet them both, and it was a most enjoyable afternoon. (You may have seen a similar photo on her blog, thanks to both of our husbands.)

In between helping Jill with household chores and playing with the grand kids, we managed to celebrate Sophia's seventh birthday----twice!  Once with Grandma and Grandpa T.

On her "real" birthday, the 19th, we had cake with a rainbow and purple and pink roses as requested.  And Mom made "rainbow jello".

See that black plate?  It was really really slippery, and there was a near catastrophe when we removed the plastic to place it on the cake stand.  Oma and Mom made a quick catch when it tried to get away!

Rainbow jello takes lots of time and patience to make, but smaller dishes help hurry the process along.

Sophia likes her Little House shawl, and it seems to fit very well.  We also gave her some Little House on the Prairie books to go with it.  This was the first time we've had a chance to celebrate a birthday with any of our Chicago grand children, and it was lots of fun!

Their backyard is visited by all sorts of critters.  This chipmunk had just polished of a choice cherry tomato.

The orange cat whose name is Charlie visits regularly and enjoys being petted. Daniel drops everything when Charlie arrives.  They are good friends.

And since we've left for home, the family had adopted four chickens.  Last year they came home from the labor Day weekend family camp with a guinea pig named Amy, and this year with four chickens.  It's your guess what they'll bring home next year!  Maybe a horse?  Or ?