KYLE AND OWEN’S POST-EASTER VISIT WITH MORMOR AND MORFAR: Morfar’s Perspective

Guest Blogger: MorFar

When you travel with Owen and Kyle, you better be prepared to get tired (i.e. exhaustion). Kyle and Owen are two of the happiest, friendliest, curious, energetic people you will ever know. The key word here is energetic.

We left our Easter Weekend rendezvous spot (Camp Bement in Charlton, MA) at about 2:30 pm on Sunday. The 3-hour trip to Freedom, NH was extended a bit by a brief stop to drop in on their great-grandmother who lives in a mansion (a retirement home in Methuen, MA). As is typical for them, especially for Owen, they wanted to see everything, touch everything, smell everything, taste everything in this big, big house. I’m not too sure what they thought about their great-Nana. But I do know that you could get exhausted just trying to keep up with both of them exercising their curiosity to know everyone and everything in that big house.

Finally, the arrival at our house in Freedom, NH, provided an opportunity for two little boys to stretch their legs after watching videos on the DVD player in the car.

You could also get exhausted by trying to keep up with Neptune, our 9-month old puppy who is big enough to give even Kyle and Owen a run for their money. Finding ways to give Neptune creative ways to expel his energy in ways other than jumping all over Kyle and Owen is a challenge, indeed. Owen loves to find ways for Neptune to run around, so throwing a tennis ball for fetching as we walked around the pasture worked pretty well. All the while, Kyle was helping his best buddy Mormor get organized for supper.

Supper was later than Kyle and Owen are accustomed to. So was bedtime. Bedtime for Mormor and Morfar was a little earlier than usual.

Monday dawned bright and beautiful. There’s nothing quite as nice as a beautiful spring day in northern New Hampshire. And nothing quite as beautiful as Kyle and Owen making the best of it. A hike up the “big mountain” of Jackman’s Ridge at Camp Calumet was followed by throwing sticks to Neptune in Lake Ossipee and that of course ended up with two boys taking off their shoes, socks and pants so they could get as submerged as possible, themselves. Ice out on Lake Ossipee had taken place just two days earlier! A quick lunch at home was followed by a not so quick baseball practice at Constitution Park on the other side of Lake Ossipee. Quality of batting goes roughly in this order – Owen, Kyle, Morfar, and then Mormor. Zestfully eating Mormor’s lamb stew for supper went roughly in this order – Kyle, Morfar, Owen, and Mormor. All of this was capped off by Kyle, Owen, and Morfar accompanying Mormor and Neptune for the weekly dog discipline class in North Conway. While Mormor and Neptune were totally immersed in discipline for an hour, Morfar tried to keep up with Kyle and Owen in and around the elementary school where the class takes place – gymnastics in and around the playground, more baseball on the beautiful baseball field, Frisbee tossing on the other field, and exploring all around the whole exterior of the school. Needless to say, by the time bedtime arrived, it was very late for Owen and Kyle. Why did they seem so unready for bed and Mormor and Morfar were ready for bed right now?

Tuesday started shortly before 6 am with two boys thundering into Mormor and Morfar’s bedroom. They were ready to go. And go we did. A hike through the snow from the Kancamagus Highway brought us to the beautiful Sabaday Falls. Kyle thought they were bigger than Niagra Falls and we tried not very successfully to dispel that notion. Lunch (macaroni and cheese, what else?) at Friendly’s, and then the highlight of the whole trip – swimming most of the afternoon at the indoor pool at Purity Springs Resort.

During this whole time, one of the things that Kyle and Owen, especially Kyle, were constantly reminding us of, was the upcoming flight to Philadelphia with Morfar that would take place on Wednesday. So during the latter part of Tuesday afternoon, I took some time to get myself ready for my business trip the would ensue from the flight with Kyle and Owen, while Mormor took them for a visit to our neighbors, Mary and Bob, and their son, Jonah.

It’s a two hour ride to the Manchester Airport. We left shortly after 9 am for our flight scheduled to take off at 12:30 pm and arrive in Philadelphia at 2:00 pm. Everything went like clockwork until…arrival at the airport and the announcement on the terminal monitors that our flight would be delayed until 1:30 pm. Then the announcement that it would be 2:15 pm. Thankfully, Mormor was still on the scene to do heroic service of helping with lunch, bathroom visits, etc. But sooner or later the inevitable would take place: Morfar by himself with Owen and Kyle to the other side of the airort security. So here’s Morfar alone with Kyle and Owen in a very crowded gate area. But miracles do happen and Morfar learned that even little boys get exhausted. Here in the midst of total noise, crowdedness and confusion, Owen pulls lovey-lion out of his backpack and lays down on the Southwest Airlines gate area carpet and decides to get some peaceful rest. Kyle likes the looks of that and he pulls honey-bunny out of his backpack and cuddles up to Morfar soon to be joined by Owen on the other knee. And there we stayed until it was time to board the 737 (Kyle always knows exactly what kind of plane he’s dealing with). Thanks to the miracle of DVD players, all was quiet and peaceful through the whole flight – even the extra hour of the flight circling around Philadelphia while that aiport was closed because of high winds. Kyle and Owen were perfect travelers and as predicted, knew exactly what to do at all times and moved much faster than Morfar through the security zone.

It was a very happy reunion that Owen and Kyle had with Mommy and Papi and Meera on the other side of the security zone at Philadelphia Airport. Morfar was pretty happy too. Morfar slept very well that night.