It was actually ver pleasant. Contributing factors:
- The weather was beautiful. Not too warm, not chilly.
- Jill bought two baby gates for the ranch house, which makes watching Clara much less stressful since we can block both the stairs and the doorway to the balcony.
- It's the first time I've been up there without a whole big group of people and it made it less chaotic.
Clara fell asleep on the way up, so when we first got there Jack stayed with her in the house and I went down to see what everyone was up to at the barn (?) around the back of the hill. Harrison was happily riding the new four wheeler. Rocket was on the littlest dirt bike (wearing a huge helmet, haha). Sola was lounging in the Highlander with the back open and Jet (the new puppy) was sleeping there next to her.
(She's been very absorbed in the Harry Potter books this entire trip, which is kind of cool. I remember being that absorbed, to where everything else was just a distraction until you could get back to HP.)
Dad and two of his worker guys were getting the larger dirt bikes going. Apparently you need to turn them on every so often or they fall into disrepair. So Dad reminded me how to turn on the medium sized bike and I took it for a ride.
It's the 2nd time I've ridden it (the first being July 5, which I never got around to writing about in this Joy Inventory). Both times were awesome. This time I didn't wear any protective gear which, while admittedly risky, was also more fun. I could keep my sunglasses on (because the helmet didn't preven tme from wearing them) so there were no bugs or dirt flying in my eyes, and I had bear arms which felt great in the warm breeze. I rode to the back of the property and back again, and it was so peaceful. When I got back I passed Rocket and Harrison again riding on their respective machines. It is just very idyllic.
I went back up to the house to take over with Clara so Jack could go for a ride, and from the balcony I could see him happily riding around out in the field. It was fun to watch; he's like a big kid, he loves those bikes.
Meanwhile Clara was great. Just exploring everything, playing with decks of cards and large puzzle pieces and the little kid chairs and the yoyo. She's so easily entertained. We are so lucky.
After awhile Jill and Sola came back to the house and Jill agreed to watch Clara for awhile so I could videotape Jack learning to use the back hoe. I watched him with Rocket and we editorialized. It actually looks pretty hard, but he seemed to like it. I didn't stay much longer so I could relieve Jill of the toddler, but Jack told me later that he got way better at it. He seemed to be having a great time, which makes me happy too (especially since he also kept checking in with me in case I wanted a break from Clara).
At some point I ended up showing Sola some of the pictures I've made for my Joy Inventory FB page, and she looked at them all with a lot of interest, which I love. I love sharing that stuff with people who are genuinely into it. She even looked at some of my unfinished pictures, including a folder marked "Family" that I forgot had several pictures related to Sola herself from a few years ago. So it's kinda cool she got to see those.
We came back to town (Clara slept on the ride back as well) and Dad, Jill, Jack, and I spent some time in my favorite part of the house: the front porch. We sipped wine and ate sauteed greens with bacon and then small ice cream sundaes and watchd the kids run around the yard and enjoyed the bug-less warm summer evening. Eventually Clara woke up and joined us and she cuddled Dad for a long time, actually, it was really sweet.
After awhile we let her off the porch and I followed her as she toddled to the backyard to check out the trampoline. When we were here in February she was very unsure about the trampoline and stayed cuddled in my lap as I sat in the middle of it. She's better now--she crawled onto it herself (as long as I held the net open) and then bounced around mostly on her knees and even a little legs by herself.
While she did that I watched Rocket playing with Jet. At one point he pretended to shoot Jet with some fake gun, and Sola--who was up at the front yard--saw him and reprimanded him. "Rocket! Do not shoot Jet with the gun!" Rocket, clearly annoyed, "Okay!" Then he turned and pretended to shoot Sola instead. She had both hands on her hips and gave him such a fierce glare, even from that distance. I don't know, I just enjoyed watching the entire sibling interaction.
Then Rocket showed me how he can ride his bike and how he can run up the slide and how he can slide down it on a water gun. He told me about shooting his BB gun and how he could probably kill zombies in the zombie apocalypse (which I had brought up). It was a nice little visit.
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