Coming of Age

At 1 parents celebrate their toddlers first birthday with great vigor! At 5 generally a child begins formal education. At 13 teenage years begin. At 16 a driver's permit is issued. At 18 high school is complete. At 21 drinking alcohol is legal and at 25 one can rent a car. Certain ages seem to mark a milestone in life. What about age 10? Any significance there? Maybe not for most but in the Stall/Thorpe family it has become a significant age. 10 years old means doing something special with Nani and Nano(Papa). This idea was first born in Nani's head, borrowed from a girlfriend who took each one of her grandchildren, when they turned 10, on a hiking exhibition down and up the Grand Canyon. She continues this regime through her line of nine grandchildren. Thankfully she is in excellent physical shape being a runner and yoga teacher. If this was the required activity Hunter and I, with our bad knees, would not make the first descent into the Canyon let alone the climb out! We would, though, make the news with our grandchild having to carry us out! Yet the idea of celebrating the 10th birthday of our grandchildren appealed to us, just not that particular activity.

This year our first grandchild, Christian, turned 10. Since the Grand Canyon idea was "off the table" what would take its place? We also had to keep in mind that trailing close behind Christian are nine more grandchildren, all of whom will be watching what number one gets to do and be expecting if not the same activity, similar ones. Keep in mind that Papa (Nano) is 71 and Nani 68 so to cover all grandchildren the activities will need to cover six more years, anything strenuous being out of the question!

As we look at our grandchildren we see them developing a variety of interests. Therefore we decided that as that magical age approached for each grandchild we would discuss with him/her what currently interested them and go from there. 

Christian has recently developed an interest in fishing, much to Papa's (Nano's)  pleasure and horse back riding, which has always been a love of Nani. Since the grandparents could not agree on one activity Christian got to do them both! Guess the bar has been set pretty high. Ha! Oh well, grandchildren are SO worth it!

Therefore  Christian went deep sea fishing with Nano and his Dad resulting in a successful day on the ocean. That evening the entire family feasted on a platter of delicious fish!

One week later Christian, his Nani, and his mom went horseback riding at sunset along a beautiful beach where we saw whales breaching in the distance as well as a rainbow and on our return ride we spied two wild boar and a huge cormorant. What fun!

We now look forward in two years to the next grandchildren "coming of age" and being a part of what they choose to do with their grandparents.

P.S. For those of you who were wondering, Hunter is called Nano by the Thorpe grandchildren and Papa by the Stall grandchildren. May be a bit strange for some but works fine for us! 🙃

"Grandchildren are the crown of the elderly.." Proverbs 17:6