Monday, June 18, 2012

What can you buy for $50.00 these days? An outfit, several grocery store items, a weeks’ worth of electricity, ¾ tank of gas, or night’s stay in a Quality Inn. What about an adventure filled clubhouse with roof accessibility, places to hide, a real steering wheel, removable seating, and storage space. That’s what you can get when you buy a 1995 Ford Astro-Van.

Little David purchased this van several years ago. It has been a means of transportation all around Chattanooga getting him and members of his family from one place to another. About 6 months ago, he got a flat tire which required him to replace the flat tire with the spare-a donut. After David had neglected to register the van, and with the new donut that looked out of place; David decided to park his van at Melissa’s house until he could replace the tire and register his vehicle. 6 months later, and the van continues to sit on the lawn at Melissa and Jeff’s house.

It began as curiosity for Austin, Cole, and Grace. What’s in the van anyway? Do the windows go up and down? Can we see over the steering wheel while pretending to drive? That was all it took. An open door (literally) to a new adventure. With toy guns, backpacks full of ammo, snacks, toy cars, and markers; the van has become a clubhouse that has transformed into a tanker. Anyone with a gun can lie on the roof keeping a lookout for bad guys, the windows can be rolled down just enough to poke a rifle through the top, and the seats can be removed creating more space for many kids to hide. What fun and a great time for any kid involved to explore their world of creativity.

Not to worry about the seats getting ruined lying out in the rain or anything; Jeff carried the back bench seat into the house and Austin and Cole are using it as seating while playing their X-Box 360.

Cole had spent another night, and caught a lizard. He was surprised that when the lizard latched onto his finger, it didn’t even hurt. He carried it around proudly for a while then released it into the woods.

Harlee watched Grace for a while. Grace was so interested in watching “My Strange Addiction” that she couldn’t be pulled away from it long enough to go to the grocery store. Imagine that!

Melissa and Austin arrived around 6:30 to pick up Cole to go to their baseball game. They won and will be playing again tonight. This is their tournament week.

Little David came over while David, Grace, and I were at the swim meet. He visited for a while with Mandy and Isabell. Jo came over as well. We lost the swim meet to Ooltewah.

Mattie came home from the swim meet with Grace but went home about 10:30. She said she was feeling sick. I hope she’s okay.

All in all…an additional 7 visitors today; 211 in all