Project Kengikat

A Day with the Kids

// January 11th, 2010 // Uncategorized

10:23PM Sunday night, the kids have been in bed for over an hour and the house is pretty quiet. I have my favorite TV show Brothers and Sisters on right now and I am relaxing. It is day 7 of my cleanse and I am feel pretty good. Today was a really good day and I had the chance to spend it with three really special people in my life. I spent the entire day with my great nephew and two great nieces and we had a blast. However I will say that I am so glad that this day is over because I am not as young as I use to be and I am pretty tired for all the running around we did today.

I so needed a day like this to end the hellish week I just had, like I said in the other blog there were some high points in the last week, but the low points really stuck out and to be very honest they are on my mind right now. I am not too worried about them, but I am concerned. As I should be. I don’t like having my back against the wall and I certainly don’t like it being there because someone else has not done their job correctly, which only has grave consequences for me. All I will be left with is “We are sorry Mr. Carr.” So the fact that I was able to spend a day just having fun and laughing was so much fun.

I’ve never spent the day with all three of them before and it really made so many cool memories of when I use to do this with their mother and her cousins way back when I was in my early twenties. All day I had this goofy feeling inside of me because I was one so happy that I was able to do this with them and two because it gave us some time to really hang out and get to know each other.

The first thing we had to do was get up and get dressed. Their parents were concerned that the youngest would have a hard time since they would not be around, they even thought she would give me a hard time about the stroller, but neither of these took place and in fact the stroller remained in the Jeep for more the 95% of the day.

Our first stop was the Griffith Park Observatory and man was it cool to see this place again. If you live here in Southern California, then you are fully aware that during the summer the observatory was almost lost in the wild fires that swept through the south land, but thanks to the grace of God and some brave and awesome fire fighters the Observatory was saved. This was cool, because it was nice to be able to spend part of the day there with my little buddies.

The day was perfect, the cool thing about being here in Southern California is that most of the time we have awesome weather and today was no exception. We also had great parking karma as well and that was cool too.

Once inside the kids were filled with smile and questions, many of which were answered by the cool staff. However it wasn’t long before the told me that were ready to head to Travel Town which is an area where old trains are on the other side of Griffith Park. We hung out a bit longer and took some pictures and took in the awesome views that only the Observatory can offer. We then headed back to the Jeep to head to Travel Town, but first we would be having out lunch.

The kids were hungry and before we left home they each packed their own lunches. On the drive the youngest told me she wanted a banana and we also needed to get some water to drink as well. Once we made it to Travel Town we found a place to sit and have lunch and share some awesome laughs and jokes. The kids kept me laughing all day long and the youngest always had a way of busting us all up with her off beat way and chiming in at any given time. She was in rare form today.

The kids had the chance to walk along the tracks as well as climb on the huge engines as well. It was so cool watching them climb up on the trains and then see the looks on their faces as they looked around the inside of the areas they were in and as they tried to see if the old levers and gears still worked. The conversations they shared with each was also pretty cool as well as the way they jumped off the trains and yelled “Let’s go this way” Out time there seem to go by pretty fast, but we were there for over an hour. This is when I heard one of them ask “are we still going to the beach?” I smiled and said “yes” I knew that was the clue that they were ready to head toward the beach.

No sooner then we go into the car and go on the freeway headed for the beach they all were sleeping, but this didn’t last very long for the youngest one. She was sleep about 10 minutes and then she was awake asking questions and singing songs right behind me as I drove them to the beach. She was also the one who demanded her brother and sister wake up as soon as started to make a down hill move toward the beach. She was so happy when she saw the beautiful blue water dotted with many sail boats.

We spent the last part of our day in Malibu at the beach. The youngest one hung back while the other two played in the water before they joined her playing in the sand where they made what they called sand castles. I was a bit taken back because they were not the sand castles I use to build when I was a kid playing at the beach. It was so cool to see how they played with each other and how the older ones did what they could to help their little sister build an awesome castle.

While walking back to the care the youngest one asked me to pick her up and looked at me and said “thanks for taking us to the beach Uncle Louis” I looked in her eyes and said “you’re welcome sweetie. Did you have fun today?” and she replied “yes”

The drive home was once again just me and the youngest one, while the others slept until just shortly before we got back to their home. We unpacked the car, the kids got ready for their baths, then cleaned their rooms made their own dinner and watched TV until it was time for them to go to bed at 9:30PM. I did  let them stay up 30 minutes past their bedtime because they had been so good today, plus they were so quiet I forgot they were still up.

As I stated in the first part of the blog I am sitting up alone watching Brothers and Sisters. The house is quiet and the kids are sleeping. I am about to take a shower and call it a day. I hope all of you have had an awesome day.