Renovation.

I picked up my new (their old) loveseat from Dave and Susan last night, and also visited with Dalton and Rylin. They (kids and parents) loved showing me all the new stuff in the newly remodeled downstairs of their house: new floors, paint, furniture, kitchen (great multicolored small glass tiles, and under-cabinet lights to highlight them, amazingly huge countertop slabs of granite), reconfigured bonus room. The furniture had just arrived a few days before, and the kids were still having a contest over who had sat in the new furniture first, and who was first tickled on the new carpet.

Rylin read me a (long) story she had dictated to Susan and illustrated about picking pumpkins, complete with colorful winds and a tornado. Afterwards she said, "I don't remember what my room looked like the last time you were here." And so we happily raced upstairs to see her new bed and wallflowers, though I'd seen the bed before. She said she didn't know if the new wallflowers would *ever* get put on the wall, since she'd already had them so long.
Seeing the multiple layers of clothes and toys littering the room, I asked her if a tornado had gone through - maybe a Rylin tornado. She said no, she had a friend over.
So I said, "Ah! Two tornados!" She laughed at that (placate the crazy uncle or he'll never stop.) Then she raced to show me the new bonus room layout, explaining they redid it because it was their kitchen while the new downstairs was being built. "See, here's where the table was where we ate!"
She was really animated and fun, very energetic. She was even doing little hops with each homework question she answered when I first arrived, moving around like a hummingbird, or a quick little bunny. Very cute.
Dalton was smiling the whole time (even a timeout didn't phase him.) He had a new haircut, fairly short, a big change from the long hair from the last time I saw him.

When Dave and I came back in from squeezing the loveseat into the van, BOTH kids were sitting in separate corners in timeout, and stayed there until I left, except for goodbye hugs. Susan said she wasn't interested in who started what, if they couldn't be nice to each other they were both getting timeouts. They both seemed okay with that, there was no yelling that I heard, and they were (mostly) quiet little mice in their corners. Well, Dalton tried to explain a couple of things to me, but Susan stopped him quickly each time. I think if he knows something he just cannot help but share it with the world. "Coal is a fossil, not a rock."