I love being a grandmother of 3 children and 1 on the way. I keep my grandchildren during the week while my daughter works. I don't want to confuse being a grandmother with being a babysitter, so I try to make good use of the time I have with them. I have tried to teach them things this summer that you cannot get in school. I am not a shopper, so we don't go out a lot. Most of the time we do things at home to make memories. Today, though we decided to go on an adventure! They had no idea where we were going, and neither did I! I knew we needed to do things that didn't cost a lot of money, so here we went on our way. They were so excited! You just will not believe where we ended up. The first place we went was a pet store. Boy did they enjoy that! It was better than a Zoo! Then, we met my "Sweet Honey" and ate lunch at Applebee's. Then we left there and went to another pet store here in town. This pet store let them pet and hold the animals. My grandchildren were in heaven. We left there and went to a very unique place in our little town. It is called Peacock Alley. In this little place, we saw a very special children's clothes store. They had a place inside that had a little cubby hole that had toys inside it. While the little ones mostly played, my 13 year old granddaughter was dreaming about picking out things for her new niece or nephew that is due in December. Inside this place they had beautiful chenille bedspreads hanging with peacocks on them. They are gorgeous! Our town is the "Carpet Capitol of The World." These bedspreads are the beginning of the carpet industry. This is our heritage here. I talked to the children about this and explained the history of our little city. They were amazed. We also found a very old dentist chair on display there and a couple of old coke machines. They could not believe a coke was 5 cents at one time. Boy, that was a long time ago! We left there and went to a little place called Krazy Knitz to look around and ask about knitting lessons. All of them were intrigued with what you can make from yarn. It was a beautiful little shop. We left there and were riding down the road and saw a Confederate Cemetery so therefore we talked a lot about that. I found out that I need to read up on my history because of all the questions. This cemetery was in the midst of a big cemetery in our town. My middle granddaughter asked me if everyone was dead out there and I said yes. I took this opportunity to take them to my grandmothers grave and tell them lots of stories about their great, great Grandma, Ophie Elizabeth Cochran. (
"My Mom's Mother") She was born Feb. 14, 1896 and went home to be with her Lord on Dec. 18, 1993. My Grandmother was so special to me when she is alive, and still is. She taught me so many things. I loved sharing these stories with my grandchildren.While we are there we saw a grave stone for my uncle and aunt with no dates on it. I realized then, that I had answered the question about everyone being dead, wrong because I knew they were still alive. So I took this opportunity to tell them how some people plan for their deaths so that their children will not have to have those worries. They were so interested. I also took them to see "My Sweet Honey's" grandparents graves, which is also their great great grandparents. Then we saw a precious little grave with stuffed animals on it. They asked me why they were there. I told them this was someones baby. On the grave stone it said "Playing in Gods Garden". I shared with them how special they were and how blessed they were to have each other and their family. Then we stopped at Sonic and we all got a slushy and headed home. They talked about this special day all the way home. We had a very full day as you can tell by the pictures below and spent very little money. I explained to them how you can have a good time without buying "stuff". I told them that "stuff" does not make happiness. On the way home, I asked each of them, what was their favorite part of the day. My oldest, & youngest, said the animals. My middle granddaughter said the cemetery. My favorite part was sharing my TIME with my grandchildren on this special adventure.
