Wordless Wednesday following Baggy Saturday

Two weeks ago the Hansen's showed up for Spring Break, which also means, Baggy Saturday - helping Grandpa prune the trees and shrubs. This year we set a record with 16 43-gallon trash bags. I'm not sure the boys will be looking for another year, but we are getting quicker each year. It only took about 3.5 hours to do this and it only represents 2 trees!

click on the photo to enlarge

April 17 - Becoming a Big Day for the McLean's

There are big days and there are big days, but April 17 has become the busiest family honor day of the year. Beginning at 12:01 am today Nicholas Keith McLean was born in Des Moines, Iowa. He barely made the new day.

Just ninety-two years previous to that his great-grandfather was born - on the same day! I believe this is the first child/grandchild/great-grandchild born on my dad's birthday.

It is also Sally and Jay's anniversary. Add all this together and it is a SPECIAL DAY for the McLean's!

Congratulations to everyone! What a great day!

Three Generations - Part 3

3 Generation Photo - Part 2 (Wordless Wednesday)

This is our 2nd photo of three generations of McLean's. Tim should note that
I finally learned how to use my remove! Taken at Mesa Park in Las Vegas, NV
close to our home.

The Las Vegas Park Blitz

When joAnn and and I were youth leaders at Church and helped plan a youth activity, whether it lasted for an afternoon or evening or for multiple days, one of our measures of success was to ask how tired were the youth when they went home. While I was out walking Friday morning I thought it would be a good idea to administered this same principle with our grandchildren. So, knowing the Bake children love going to the park and knowing we have a lot of great parks with playgrounds in Las Vegas, it seemed only natural that we would all want to go to as many parks as possible in one day. I called it the park blitz. I have to tell you, it was just like going to the candy or ice cream shop - my eyes were way bigger than my or anyone else's energy, except for maybe the kids.

Alexis, Dean, Hattie, Danny, Ellen

We went to a number of parks! We did have a great time! We were exhausted at the end of the day - if not sometime before!

Each park one was a little different and because of those differences it made it all the more exciting to look forward to the next park. Anticipation is always so much fun. And when you children going to the park, anticipation is rarely disappointed by the real event.

It was exciting looking forward to the next park, but we adults finally got to the point where we looked forward to home. I had forgotten in all those years of youth activities it was almost always the leaders who always wore out first.

As we pulled into each park the children could not wait to get out of the car and to begin their exploration. The parks did have some common play devices, such as slides stairs ladders climbing devices for children. But what the children didn't realize until they arrived, was that each park was organized a little differently and had some unique play structures. That made for a lot of fun. Each time we visited a park the children wanted to see what was unique and special. We watched them explore for the unique things first and then run back and play on the things they enjoyed the most and then back to the new play structures. It was back and forth, especially for little Hattie who wanted to do it all - and didn't need any help!

We did lunch at Taco Bell (not so good), and then split up with the dad and grandpa and the little ones looking for another park (I had many more on my list) while mom and grandma took the two older girls shopping. I suppose you can call that a playground too. We got a couple of more parks in until we thought everyone was pretty tired. We took them home and you put them down for naps or asked them to relax. We were tired, and we assumed they would be too. Wrong! They were still excited about going to parks and wanted to go to more. After  dinner we were off to the neighborhood park for another round of fun.

You might ask, was everyone tired? The answer was a resounding yes! Come Saturday morning and it was time to leave it was tough getting anyone up and on the road to home. It was a great activity and we will do it again, but not on the last day they are in town. Oh yes, grandma and grandpa were totally exhausted on Saturday and didn't get up until almost 9 am on Sunday. Thank goodness for grandkids and for Sundays.