Every Sunday we go to my parents house after church for lunch and usually stick around till the kids bedtime. It’s become a “tradition” and the boys know it is part of our Sunday routine. Ethan loves playing with PaPa and Lucas is also getting old enough to anticipate the visit each week too. A few Sunday’s ago, my mom and I left after lunch to do some stuff around town and Kevin was inside the house studying while Lucas took a nap. Ethan wanted to stay with PaPa … I got this email from my Dad this week that brought tears to my eyes… what sweet memories for him AND Ethan! Thanks for sharing your heart Dad! I love you and so does Ethan!
“Last Sunday was a very memorable Sunday with Ethan. He and I were out in the garden, which is always fun with him, when you guys were gone. We were picking the cherry tomatoes and I kept telling him just the red ones and not the orange or green ones. Every once in a while I would remind him when his hand was heading toward an orange one. On a few occasions his little hand came out of the tomato plant with a red or orange one as well as a green one. He promptly discarded the green one on the ground without a word or hesitation and quickly moved on to get the next tomato. A little later I was stooping by the garden’s edge pulling a few weeds and showing him how as of course he wanted to help and pull weeds as well. As I am going about my little task and not paying too much attention, all of a sudden I notice that he has somehow nudged his way into my lap to sit on my knee and watch. A few very precious moments occurred like that. The final episode came after I had tightened the sting on the grape tomato vine at the end of the garden and had walked back and stood under the apple tree looking at the garden and again not paying too much attention as to where Ethan was at that time. All of sudden I feel this great big thud square on the top and smack dab in the middle of my head from something hitting me. It must have startled me so since it caught me with such surprise, that I jumped. Before I could look around to see what the object was and where it came from that caused such commotion, I hear this soft quiet voice behind me saying with great sadness, “I’m sorry”. When I looked around, I must have had such a frown of bewilderment that he said he was sorry several more times. Then, when I looked at him and realized he had launched one of the largest apples that was lying on the ground and landed a perfect bull’s eye on my head, I gave him a great big grin and his forlorn look turned into jubilant laughter. Of course he want to do it again but I discouraged him and we went on enjoying the rest of our time by the little garden on a nice, quiet, sunny Sunday afternoon. Thanks for the memories, Ethan.”
Love,
Dad
I, of course didn’t get any pictures since I was gone that day but here are some pictures from last year… looks like this will be an annual thing… helping PaPa in the little garden. 
