Grandpa's Birthday

This past week was my Grandpa Summers 80th birthday.  This weekend we had a birthday party for him.  There were plenty of little boy cousins around to play with and Vince though it was great.  Joel did too, but he spent most of his time just running from room to room with his aunts, grandma or myself keeping an eye on him.  There are a LOT of breakable trinkets all over the house at a child friendly level.  It keeps me on my toes! Vince and my little cousin Luke, who is 5 years old, really hit it off.  They both came up to me to tell me that they were friends.  Vince loves playing with older kids and Luke didn't seem to mind having Vince follow him around all night!  Once the two of them started playing together I hardly saw Vince all night.

At my grandpa's house there are several bedrooms upstairs and a large hallway area.  One of the bedrooms and the hallway have some toys for the kids to play with.  I haven't been up there in forever and didn't really know what all was up there.  I probably should have checked it out early than what I did.  There was a very large (3 feet tall) snowman upstairs that was filled with little styrofoam balls, kind of like what you would find in a beanbag.  Except the difference is that it was so pack with them that it was very firm.  Earlier in the evening Vince and Luke were playing with some toy tools and having fun.  I went upstairs once and they told me the snowman's eye was broken and there was some white fuzz on the ground but I didn't think much of it.  (Big Mistake!).  I am not really sure how all the commotion upstairs started but soon my sisters, Joe, my mom and Dave were all making trips upstairs and coming downstairs just shaking their heads and laughing.  My cousin's wife, Andrea, and I decided to go upstairs.  She grabbed a vacuum on the way up.  When I got upstairs Luke and Vince had a toy power drill in the snowman's eye trying to fix it.  Vince kept saying "we just trying to fix his eye.  Um, next time I think I need to use real tools."  A good portion of the room was covered in little styrofoam balls and so were the kids.  I took the snowman out of the room and put part of it into a garbage bag.  I went back into the room and Vince and Luke were rolling in the white styrofoam balls and were having a blast.  All I could do was shake my head and laugh.  I couldn't believe what a mess that silly snowman created and that it was still so full!  The vacuum worked well to clean the kids and the room!  My only real regret is not taking a camera upstairs with me.