Chia Pets and Chicken Thieves

Right before Christmas my sister told me that my nephew Jonathan had seen a commercial for Chia Pets and was infatuated with them. He was going around the house talking about Chi Chi Chi Chia and how he wanted one. I could not pass up this opportunity. For years now I have wanted to get everyone in my family a Chia Pet for Christmas and every year I decide against it. Chi Pets just look like so much fun and so silly that they intrigue me. I figured one of these years someone would actually ask for one for Christmas, but I would not have guessed that it was going to be my 7 year old nephew.

Somehow in all the confusion of the Christmas celebration, I was out of the room when Jonathan was given this particular present to unwrap. I saw him about 10 seconds later and I can only imagine how priceless the original reaction must have been because the delayed one was amazing. He was standing there looking like he was holding onto a million dollars. He was almost speechless with glee and my sister said that it looked like he was actually going to produce tears of joy. He finally spoke and the excitement came flooding out with a neverending string of Chi Chi Chi Chias. I would have paid $100 (don't get any ideas, Chia people) if I knew that it was going to make him that happy. Definitely an adorable moment.

Later in the week I was able to visit my Grandpa at the Care Facility that he stays at. He is 93 years old and up until a year ago, he was living on his own and enjoying a slow, but routine life. Unfortunately he had what appears to be a stroke or something in that category and became incapacitated for awhile and has never fully recovered. He had to be admitted to a Nursing Home and he has a lot of physical limitations. He seems to be mentally sharp most of the time, but he has no desire to get involved with any activities or do anything but stay in bed. He enjoys it when people visit him and he loves it when we read the Bible to him, but other than that he likes to sleep. Because of this, he gets pretty confused on the days and the times and sometimes says things that don't make sense and you can tell that he is referring to something that he dreamed or that happened to him many years ago. On this particular visit right before I was going to leave, he asked if he had told me about his horses. He had been sharp the whole visit, so I was not concerned that he was losing ground. I think that he was just remembering a dream, but it seemed real to him. Either way, he was so happy and animated while telling me this story, I didn't care. I thought it was cute and it made me smile.

He told me that he had two horses that he loved very much. He said that they used to nuzzle him and they were great horses. He said that his family was having trouble with chicken thieves and those horses found some sort of platform way up high to stand on and they took up buckets of water. They waited up there until they saw a man go into the hen house and then they started dribbling water on top of the hen house until the man came back out and then they just let him have it with the all the buckets of water. My Grandpa was so tickled over this and then he finished it off with..."I have no idea how those horses got so smart!"