Mountain Boy: Activate!

After the whirlwind of meeting Cousin Quinn and celebrating Grandaddy--never know how many d's to put in that--Jake's birthday, got down to the serious business of maximizing their playing time together. Not easy, since Dorian and company were set to head out to the airport this very afternoon. The boys did the logical thing and went out and played tennis on the mountainside driveway of the Weichel manse.

Here's how it went. An adult, usually Mitch but sometimes Aunt Jodee, would stand at the garage door and gently hit a ball to either Kiernan or Dorian. The boy would then hit the ball as hard as he could, in whatever direction he could. Another adult, usually me, standing down below the driveway would then run and get the ball and throw it back. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

This will probably come as no surprise, but the boys refused to tire of this game. Which fact was a source of constant and abiding joy to us adults.

Later, after Dorian left Kiernan discovered a new game: throwing pine cones off the back deck. This entailed venturing out into the wilderness below the deck to collect said pine cones. This was accomplished with no small amount of trepidation as Grandaddy Jake and Aunt Jodee were not ones to ever pass up an opportunity to tell Kiernan that they'd seen something like fifty bears wandering around the neighborhood just a couple of days ago. This freaked him out just enough that I had to constantly accompany him on these excursions, but not enough to deter him from venturing out to collect pine cones.

One time I was able to hang back long enough to get a picture.

Later that day we all sat down for one of Omi's excellent meals, and Jake brought out one of his gadgets, this little 20 questions thingy called the 20Q that guesses what noun you're thinking of with uncanny accuracy. We all had a blast with this little doo-dad, including Kiernan.

Incidentally, just between you and me, there is a 20Q app, available from the iTunes App Store. I'm not telling Wendy and Kiernan about this. It's hard enough to get them away from the iPad as it is.