Meet Hyram...

Hyram is our new resident gnome. He moved from our granddaughters' house to ours. He's a ramblin' man who enjoys the fun things in life. He is the product of Granddaughter One and Grandaughter Two's artistic endeavors, and we love him.
I'm told there is a wonderful shop in their town where you can walk in, choose the greenware piece (anything from coffee mugs to little figurines), and then paint them to your taste. From there the shop employees take the painted pieces, place them in a kiln and fire them to bring each piece to life.

Our granddaughters actually painted this little gnome and sent him to Florida to keep us company. They also glued a magnet to the back of a sweet little turtle and now it proudly sits on our fridge.

As for the gnome - we never know where he'll turn up. He's pretty independent, and gnomes are well-known to be mischevious. They're also friends to all wild creatures. Imagine my surprise when I saw him out in the Holidome chatting it up with one of our resident pool geckos! The geckos love the Holidome. They eat ants and other insects. Apparently, the gnome and the gecko were discussing local cuisine.
We decided to name him "Hyram" and he's going to become a chronicler of our travels this year. We're going to take him wherever we go with the Flying Cloud and then take his picture in each place we visit. Sort of like a 3-D Flat Stanley.

We'll write about the different places, states and landmarks, include a few mementos from each stop, and then at the end of the year, I'll put together a little journal of all the photographs and put everything into a gift box to give to our granddaughters. We did this a number of years ago for our grandson and he still has it.

Perhaps I should add a cd of the Allman Brothers "Ramblin' Man" to include with the album. What do you think? ("Lord, I was born a ramblin' ma-a-a-an. Tryin' to make a livin' and doin' the best I ca-an...") giggle Gotcha! Sing it with us, now! Those mischevious gnomes. So sneaky!