A Weekend with Ian

The Regional championships for Tumbling and Trampoline were in Oregon this past weekend, so Johnny and I were both able to watch grandson Ian doing his Double Mini Trampoline and Trampoline routines for the judges (instead of one of us staying home to do chores while the other drove up to Seattle as we have for the past competitions). Alas, I messed up the setting on my camera and missed taping Ian's Trampoline performance but I did tape his practice run. It's here: http://youtu.be/wX4RMyt_7Qk

And here's a still capture I took off that video showing Ian's impressive mid-air split.

Once again, Ian took home two first place trophies and good memories of a fun time. But he didn't get to go home to Washington right away. First we all had lunch together, swam in their hotel pool and then Kevin and Jessica stayed at the hotel for some time together while Ian came to the farm with us for an overnight.

He had to greet all the animals, of course, and inspect progress on the new goat barn. He insisted we move the ancient scratching post -- the one that Kevin and Steve had made out of bottle caps when they were very young -- from the old barn to the new one. Johnny is playing the goat here, scratching his head. Ian is going to save bottle caps to make us a new scratcher for the new barn.











The goats all vied for attention from Ian. Sweetheart, especially, would not leave his side. She loved having her ears rubbed and he loved petting her. The still capture from my video is dark and blurry but there they are together, inside the barn. She wouldn't leave him alone so he could play with the baby goats, whose antics you can catch in this video as they romp near Ian and faithful Sweetheart: http://youtu.be/INtoz3-phc0














Ian helped me with chores, but Johnny captured him here with some old lady filling a water tub. I can't imagine who she is. I thought I had filled that tub.


Ian distributed feathers for the swallows to nab in flight. He came upon the idea of perching the feathers atop tall grasses. That worked well. Johnny's camera caught one successful swallow trying to stuff the captured feather through his nest hole... I think another swallow came and stole this feather before he succeeded. There was much stealing of feathers going on this day.













Of course, we had to walk to Agency Creek, although the electric EZ Go was such fun that Ian drove it through the arboretum for the first leg of the trip... bigger boys, bigger toys...

And bigger skipping rocks! Here's a sequence of Ian skipping a very large rock. You can see by the three splash marks visible in the last photo that he succeeded.










On Sunday afternoon, we had to give Ian back to his parents for their long drive home. I'm glad we have videos and photos to help us remember the good times. Ian's love for the goats and theirs for him is something I won't forget. This photo, although just a silhouette, seems to capture that feeling best.