Last summer, our church had a father-son campout. The boys went with Jeff, and they have been talking about it ever since. (Maybe because of the Oreos and donuts, but I think it is just because they love Jeff.) Grace, of course, is always so sad that she can't go. This year, when it came up again, Jeff and the boys signed up to go, so I decided to plan something Grace would love: a trip out to eat and some local attraction on Friday night, and a trip to the AG store on Saturday. (This would just be a visit - we would NOT be coming home with a doll, and we would NOT eat at the cafe, but we could look around at everything, which is so fun, and she could spend the small amount of money she had saved up.) She was excited, and so was I.
BUT...the father-son campout was cancelled. After much discussion, Jeff decided to camp in the back yard with the boys, but I couldn't just cancel on Grace. On Friday night, she wanted to eat at Taco Bell and we planned to go to the local used bookstore, but at the last minute, we chose Panda Express, and she chose to look at the animals at the pet store. And I enjoyed watching her. She was particularly enamored with a little hamster that kept climbing the wall of its cage, and she wanted to name it Curiosity. I thought that was a great name!
Here she is getting her dolls ready for their Saturday trip to see their friends. She has discovered that she has my mom's talent for closing her eyes in pictures, so she's practicing keeping them (very) open in this one. She decided to carry the Bitty Twin, Maddie, in the carrier, and carry her AG doll, Grace, in her arms.
I promise I will teach her that tights are not pants. But other than that, they look pretty cute.
Jeff made the point, and I agreed, that we had been apart as a family too much lately - May had a lot of travel and other commitments for us - so they whole family piled into the not-so-mini-van and made the drive together. The boys visited the Lego store at a crowded mall while we girls went to the AG store, and then we all had lunch together.
Here we are getting ready to go inside.
Grace and I really enjoyed our time at the store. She had a terrible time deciding how to spend her money. The amount was below the cost of a lot of the fun outfits and things, so I guess this was an opportunity for me to teacher not to spend her money just to have spent it. In the end, she found a crafty book that she loved, and we were both happy with her choice. And I sneakily bought a couple of small items to save for Christmas.
On the way home, we visited a small museum that I thought was underwhelming but Jeff liked, and we took some goofy pictures to remember it. In the end, we were thankful that to have time together as a family instead of split up into boy/girl groups for the whole weekend.
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