Barb and Butch's Big Adventure: Missouri kids

Saturday, July 7

Missouri kids

The kids are here, the Missouri kids. Been here since Tuesday. That is one reason why I have not been on here paying attention to business.
This morning I decided I had to get some of the stuff on record before it slips from memory.
Leo, little Leo that would be, says something or does something every day that is astounding. So does his sister, Elise but her feats are more subtle, mature and sophisticated. She is eight. I will get to her in a bit.

Back to Leo. He has a girlfriend. She is his bus buddy when they went to pre-kindergarten. He is five. He tells us his girlfriend is beautiful but crazy. Her name is Hadley. When asked why she is crazy he said she always wants to play Cat or Going to a Party. His mother asked him if Hadley would say he was crazy? He said, "No because I play multiple games." I was there and I heard it and yes, multiple was the word he used.
This morning we had a plan to go to the Belltower. Leo has been wanting to go to the Belltower even before he got here. I asked him why he wanted to go so bad and he said, "Because you can see the whole world from up there!" He was very impressed.
And then we were discussing how much it would cost to go. $3 for adults and kids are free. Leo offered the money he has in his billfold. He still has the money in it I gave him a couple of years ago. He said he had been saving it. I asked what he was saving it for. He said, without missing a beat, "To buy a house in Paris? Remember he is five!!

Elise, age 8 is growing up so very fast. She is a voracious reader. I have known quite a few of those in my life. In fact, my branch of the family is full of them and her Nana Susan is one too. Elise's mother, Amanda is a reading teacher. So the whole bit is deeply embedded in her. She brought 5 books with her and she has read four and working on her fifth. One of those was Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone. I was working on this blog entry and not quite finished when she came up and started reading it over my shoulder. I wasn't sure how I felt about that at first but it was fine. I learned later that she reads at a rate of 192 words a minute. That seems very fast to me. I think her parents are going to have a hard time keeping her in books. Is there a BookBub.com for children? I will check on that. They do!
Her fifth book that she is reading now is "A Wrinkle in Time". Sure hope it is better than the movie.

It has been a busy 5 days! I have taken many pictures in the past 5 days, ridden the trail a couple times, walked a couple of times, been to Spring Lake and snapped photos throughout all of these events.