After breakfast we were off for a morning of shopping. First stop, a Target store, hoping to find a nice hat for Max. Although we didn’t find a suitable hat, we DID have fun playing on the giant red balls outside the entrance.

Then we continued on to the Santan Village Shopping Center, a big outdoor mall. While Tim and the ladies went shopping Max and I played in the playland in the courtyard. Lots of other parents and grandparents had the same idea. Max has as much fun watching other children as he does playing himself. So we did a lot of that.

And after we’d checked out the pet store and Max had proclaimed that he ‘wuved’ every little dog behind the glass, we found the others and had lunch at one of the many restaurants in the complex. Max, sporting the new hat his parents had found and bought for him, ordered macaroni and cheese.

We managed to make it home just in time for ‘nap time’. And while the girls went for a bike ride around ‘the loop’, the boys listened to some Joe Cocker tunes (he died today) and then caught up on some shut-eye. When the girls got back and we’d all been awakened, Opa and Tim and Alex and Max went for a ‘hike’ up the hill behind our house to check out the sunset while Sue worked on supper. And while there was a bit of a haze in the air, and some clouds in the west kept the mountain from getting as red as it often is, we enjoyed not only the view but the walk as well. Just enough ‘exercise’ to warrant another visit around the supper table.

After supper Max entertained us for a while until he was off to bed. Alex made one of her delicious Christmas desserts (marshmallow squares) for dessert — and I got to scrape out the plate. Then we dug out the games we’d borrowed from Ed and Val and the four adults played “Apples to Apples” at the dining room table until sleep overcame us and we all headed off to bed as well.