Once again, Jobe had been feeling under the weather with his respiratory infection, so Margie and I went into town, picked Kalib up and brought him home to spend the weekend with us in order to make it easier for his parents to care for Jobe and do all they needed to do.
After he got up in the morning, Kalib laid lazily back down upon the couch.
He didn't stay lazy for long, though. Soon he was out in the backyard, gathering golf balls.
He knew just what to do with them.
Then he wandered down to the back part of the back yard.
Kalib, at the edge of the woods.
Soon, he wandered off into the trees. I wanted to follow, but I had let Jim out. I needed to keep my eye on Jim.
So Margie went off into the woods with Kalib while I kept my eye on Jim. Jim had not been out the whole time that I had been traveling, as he only goes out when I can watch him and make certain that he does not wander off and get eaten or run over.
It drove me a little nuts, though.
I wanted to see what Kalib and his grandma were up to.
Finally, I got Caleb to take Jimmy into the house and I went off to find Kalib and Grandma. I found them returning from whatever adventure they had been on.
Then Kalib turned around and took off back in the direction from whence they had appeared. Margie followed. I followed, too.
Kalib left our property altogether and went out into what we still call "the swamp," or "the marsh." Dodd Shay, the friendly property owner, does not like me to call it "swamp" or "marsh."
"Meadow," he insists. "It's a meadow."
Perhaps he is right now. But for the first 10 or 15 years that we lived here, it was a swamp. If Kalib had been where he is in this picture, he would have been emerged in water to his hips - especially this time of year, when the snows have been melting.
;)
Still, the swamp is not completely dry. A bit of water and a bit of muck still remains out there. Kalib scurried off to this four wheeler track, left by vandals who ignored all of Shay's signs telling them to keep their machines out of the meadow because machines damage it.
It looked to me like Kalib had stuck his foot into mud. "Kalib," his grandma and I both shouted out to him. "Don't put your foot in the mud! Take your foot out of the mud."
He just stood there, keeping his foot in the mud, smiling mischievously at us.
Finally, he pulled his foot out of the mud. We called him to come to us, but he would not. He just stood there with a troubled expression on his face.
No matter how much we called, he would not budge.
Finally, I walked to him. When I saw that he now wore only one of his little dinosaur boots, I understood the troubled expression. Look to the right of the frame. There you will see the little dinosaur boot that goes on his left foot - stuck in the mud.
His grandma came, pulled the boot out of the mud and helped him back into it.
Kalib did not want to walk in his mud-filled boot. He wanted to be carried. I offered to carry him, but he would not let me. Only grandma would do. Kalib is grandma's boy.
Then he got down and walked.
How did he get his knees so muddy?
Come night, Kalib and his grandma sat on the couch and reminisced about the day's grand adventure. They watched movies with Uncle Caleb.
A little after 10 PM, Kalib fell sound asleep in his grandma's embrace.
Yes, Kalib is Grandma's boy.
Grandpa then carried him into bed, tucked him in and there he slept for the next 11 hours.
Wow!
While I was traveling, Lisa completed all her class projects, took her finals and wound up with straight A's. It had been a very tough semester for her. She carried a full load, worked full time, and had to take on extra tasks such as dog sitting to make ends meet.
Once, we found her in tears and tried to give her some money to make it a little easier, but she would not take that money. She wanted to do it on her own and she did.
Right after she graduated from high school, Lisa went excitedly off to college in Durango, Colorado, but the year proved disastrous for her. She had an alcoholic roommate and she grew so homesick that when the year ended, she came home and dropped out of college.
But now she knows that college is something she needs to complete to go where she wants to go.
We are very proud of her.