Second half

The second half of our trip to the Midwest was spent at Dave's Grandma Swan's house in southern Illinois. This was only the second time Caleb has had the opportunity to see his great grandma and he was very excited to be there!


One of the most common bonding opportunities they had while we visited was reading books together. Caleb brought at few of his favorites from home, but Grandma McKinstry loaned us a few as well which helped entertain our busy boy.

Another interesting source of entertainment was Grandma Swan's wind chime. He repeatedly prompted us to lift him up or stretched up on his tiptoes trying to make music.

While we were unaware at the time, Caleb had an ear infection during the trip. We were tipped off that this might be the case because he was VERY loud most of the time we were visiting Grandma Swan. The last time he was this noisy for an extended period of time was during our trip to visit Dave's parents at Christmas, which was also the only other time he's had an ear infection. He wasn't always upset; a lot of the loudness was squeals of excitement, but he was quite vocal the entire visit. We decided that for the sake of Grandma Swan's ears and our sanity, we'd better get this kid outside a little despite the 90 degree temperatures. One morning we decided to beat the heat by taking a trip to a local playground.

The toys were fun and all but the bobcat moving things
around the park was pretty amazing to Caleb.

Another day, we took a walk to a cemetery near Grandma Swan's because it had a lot of large trees to shade us. While it might not seem the ideal place to visit, it allowed Caleb play outside some and he found ways to entertain himself with lots of sticks we found along the way.

Later that day, Uncle Phil and Aunt Lotella (Grandma Swan's sister) dropped by and took us out for some ice cream at the local Dairy Queen.


It was bittersweet heading home, knowing that it will be a while before we can visit again. But, we're so thankful the three of us had time to spend with Grandma Swan this summer.