War and Peace  

Dennis, the former neighborhood foster teen, stayed with us overnight a few weeks ago.  He expressed interest in coming back to help with Vacation Bible School with his foster parents, Shawn and Bob.  Plans were not finalized until two days before it started.  We were halfway to Brevard after church, so we picked him up.  Dennis and our grandsons quickly resumed their friendship from previous visits.

It wasn’t long before they pulled out the Nerf guns, a favorite pastime.  I’m quite sure David and Nathaniel never played with them this much when they were boys.  With age came more sophisticated play.  Surprisingly, there was less noise and more strategy.  The one most appropriately dressed was Dennis.  Somewhere they found a never-worn camouflage outfit that belonged to David.  The label said it was a small size, but it fit Dennis perfectly.  Children might have resented being asked to pose, but these young men pandered to the wishes of the toy camera.

Digging trenches was the other war front.  Dennis was at Bible School every morning, and David worked four days.  That left Nathaniel and John to attack the waterfall project.  John was very thankful for N’s young back.  The two of them moved earth and dug out rocks.  Since our garden was inhabited by inherited plants, I forgot the terrain would be rocky.  They found plenty of evidence that we live in the mountains.

Shawn and I agreed that having potluck dinners would be an efficient way to feed everyone  It was a lovely, if slightly frenetic, way for all eight of us to visit.  The photo shows the transition from war to peace.

One evening Logan was particularly restive when the rest of us wanted to settle in our chairs to visit.  We had an unopened Lego engine that kept him occupied.  Luckily, he was sitting next to the Lego enthusiast, David.  The toy was not easy to assemble, and they hit a snag when one of the pieces broke.  Someone searched the big box of Legos and found a replacement.

Several days later the big fellows were playing at the table, waiting for everyone to finish eating.  I told them Logan would have been envious.  Dennis and Nathaniel completed the engine.  Ta da!!

Although the days were quite warm, the air cooled in the evening.  Someone noticed flashes of light in the sky which never did develop into a thunderstorm, but we went to the front porch to watch.  I laughed at the way we settled in, because John just bought two more chairs to accommodate more people.  He placed the new chairs and the rockers in two conversation groups.  When I went out to look, I said our house looked like an old folks’ home.  Guess it is, at that.  David and Dennis promptly perched on the railing while looking at their phones.

After a day with rain showers, the fellows burned all the garden debris in the burn pit.  Logan was attracted to the activity, and soon Dennis and David were throwing the glider with him.  The day wasn’t complete until the plane got hung up in the evergreen tree.  David and Dennis ended the day peacefully sitting by the dying embers.