Today was June19. In addition to it being the Lord’s Day, it was also Father’s Day. Sadly, we have chosen to take two children away from their fathers on this special day, and for that we apologize, but we definitely enjoyed having the boys with us today.
We ate the complimentary continental breakfast provided at the motel. Bailey took advantage of the opportunity to cook his own breakfast, and ended up eating two huge waffles. Jacob (and Olen and I also) ate an ample breakfast, adequate for people who intended to do physical labor all morning. However, of course our morning’s activity was attending worship services, which did not require as many calories as we consumed. But, this is a vacation, not a week at a weight-loss clinic.
The boys were on time for breakfast, and for our departure for worship service. In fact, they have been extremely punctual this entire trip. They got a wake-up call from the front desk this morning, and we did not check to make sure they were up. We just expected them to be ready at the appointed time…and they were. You gotta love dependable teenagers!
We drove to Milton, Vermont for the worship service, which they have first, followed by the Bible class. Much to our surprise, they had a guest speaker this morning, Paul Williams, who had just held a weekend meeting for us right after the tornadoes the end of April. Paul had been holding a meeting in Milton, and completed his preaching this morning. His sermon was “Who are We?” from I Peter. When it was time for the Bible class, he talked to the adults about his work in Africa, and the boys enjoyed that in particular. It was pleasantly cool this morning, and the windows were open at the church building to welcome the fresh, clean Vermont air into the building for our service. Worship services are always a welcome event, but this morning it was even more special as we renewed old friendships and met brothers and sisters who serve the Lord in Vermont.
We drove to downtown Burlington after the services were over. Burlington has a pedestrian mall in the downtown area that includes several blocks of shops where there is no automobile traffic, and it is shady, making it a wonderful place to walk, shop, and eat. Many of the restaurants have tables outside (European style) where people can eat and do full-scale people-watching at the same time. Delightful! We had pizza for lunch and then drove down to the waterfront and purchased tickets for a 2:00 cruise on Lake Champlain.
The weather was perfect for a cruise…blue skies…sunny…slight breeze. While we were waiting for our time to board the ship, we walked along the shore line and enjoyed the afternoon. The cruise was on the “Spirit of Ethan Allen III, a 424-passenger ship, but the cruise we were on was not a fourth full, so we could sit pretty much wherever we wanted to and even change positions from time to time.
We ate the complimentary continental breakfast provided at the motel. Bailey took advantage of the opportunity to cook his own breakfast, and ended up eating two huge waffles. Jacob (and Olen and I also) ate an ample breakfast, adequate for people who intended to do physical labor all morning. However, of course our morning’s activity was attending worship services, which did not require as many calories as we consumed. But, this is a vacation, not a week at a weight-loss clinic.
The boys were on time for breakfast, and for our departure for worship service. In fact, they have been extremely punctual this entire trip. They got a wake-up call from the front desk this morning, and we did not check to make sure they were up. We just expected them to be ready at the appointed time…and they were. You gotta love dependable teenagers!
We drove to Milton, Vermont for the worship service, which they have first, followed by the Bible class. Much to our surprise, they had a guest speaker this morning, Paul Williams, who had just held a weekend meeting for us right after the tornadoes the end of April. Paul had been holding a meeting in Milton, and completed his preaching this morning. His sermon was “Who are We?” from I Peter. When it was time for the Bible class, he talked to the adults about his work in Africa, and the boys enjoyed that in particular. It was pleasantly cool this morning, and the windows were open at the church building to welcome the fresh, clean Vermont air into the building for our service. Worship services are always a welcome event, but this morning it was even more special as we renewed old friendships and met brothers and sisters who serve the Lord in Vermont.
We drove to downtown Burlington after the services were over. Burlington has a pedestrian mall in the downtown area that includes several blocks of shops where there is no automobile traffic, and it is shady, making it a wonderful place to walk, shop, and eat. Many of the restaurants have tables outside (European style) where people can eat and do full-scale people-watching at the same time. Delightful! We had pizza for lunch and then drove down to the waterfront and purchased tickets for a 2:00 cruise on Lake Champlain.
The weather was perfect for a cruise…blue skies…sunny…slight breeze. While we were waiting for our time to board the ship, we walked along the shore line and enjoyed the afternoon. The cruise was on the “Spirit of Ethan Allen III, a 424-passenger ship, but the cruise we were on was not a fourth full, so we could sit pretty much wherever we wanted to and even change positions from time to time.
The cruise took an hour and a half, was narrated, and we learned much about Lake Champlain while enjoying the sights. It was delightful.After the cruise we walked back to the pedestrian mall where we had seen a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream shop.
After refreshing ourselves with ice cream, we walked back through the area, but saw a street vendor Olen could not pass by, so he bought a bag of kettle corn, which we all shared as we walked back to the car. 
I don’t think it is possible that the boys will mal-nutrate before they get back home…I don’t think…While we were on the cruise, we had passed a place on shore called Red Rock Park, one of the Burlington city parks. We decided to try to find that park and take a hike to the rock cliffs we had seen from the ship. The park had many hiking paths, most of which were not well marked. One thing that was marked was the listing of rules for dog-walkers. I photographed the sign because we got a good laugh out of it. The instructions were in English, but were also translated into “dog-language” for the dogs to read!
Jacob is becoming quite the photographer! He should have some excellent shots!
There was no one in the pool, so the boys spent about an hour relaxing in the pool (under Olen’s supervision…although Olen can’t swim a lick!) before we went to eat again…this time at a local Burger King. We have had several problems with our food orders since arriving in Vermont, and it happened again tonight. We have decided that these people don’t understand southern drawls very well, so we are all trying to remember to speak loudly, clearly, slowly, and distinctly, sort of like you would speak to someone who is hard of hearing. We’ll see if this helps in the days ahead.
Another thing we have noticed here is that all of the restaurant menus (even in fast food establishments) have the calories listed for each item. It really takes a lot of the fun out of ordering! We had seen it so much that we wondered if that was a law in the city of Burlington, so we asked a local authority…the part-time high school student working at Burger King. She said that it was a state law here. Interesting.
So, after dinner at Burger King, we came back to the motel and it was eight o’clock…time for our “field trip” to the lobby for warm chocolate chip cookies and milk. We weren’t hungry, but the staff had prepared them, and we hated to be rude. We brought the milk and cookies to our room and (since it was “Father's Day) we let Olen choose the game for tonight. He chose “Phase Ten”, and he ended up beating us all. We told him that we actually “let” him win because it was Father's Day, which wasn’t exactly factual, but it sounded good.
The boys are back in their room now, probably watching some baseball game on TV. As for Olen and me, we plan to get some shut-eye because we have wake-up calls set for 7:00 in the morning. We have several activities planned for tomorrow.
It is the end of another very special day! We are so thankful that we have been blessed with these wonderful grandsons, and are equally thankful that their parents are generous enough with them to share them with us for a few days.
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