greta and henry adventures

It all started a couple of months ago as I was getting Greta to sleep.  After reading a couple of books, the light went off, then came the usual request, "Tell me a story."  These stories typically involve her dolls as characters and she is happy to provide an outline.  Hula, Leily, and Kaya go to the park to climb trees.  Elke hurts herself and her mom wants to take her to the doctor but she refuses to go.  Maybe the ones where Briar Rose, Cinderella, and Woman invite Snow White to their party but Snow White wont go because she doesn't like loud music.  There have been so many stories and I must say I was getting tired of telling the same ones over and over again.

 So, one night I decided to mix things up a bit.  I told her a story with Greta and Henry as the main characters.  This she liked!  The story was simple, I can't really remember, maybe they planted a garden or baked a pie, something boring like that.  She liked it just the same.  The next night Zach was putting her to bed and I suggested telling her a story about her and Henry and that I knew she would love it.  Well, the story that followed blew her away and the Greta and Henry Adventures began.  In this particular adventure they took a hot air balloon to Africa to do some giraffe watching, of course taking along walkie-talkies to keep in touch with mom and dad.   Since then they have been around the world befriending all sorts of interesting creatures. They have ridden on the backs of whales, piloted blimps, scuba dived, a unicorn took them on a ride to an elf village, they have shot rocket ships to the moon to eat moon yogurt. Tonight they rode a dragon from country to country sampling the local delicacies, the dragon getting ten portions to their one.

Zach really is a master story teller.  He includes everything a great story needs.  Humor, exploration, suspense, he has Greta at the edge of her seat and I often hear them laughing hysterically in the other room.  Sometimes they draw together retelling the adventure on paper.  Above are a couple of their doodles.

Greta is so fortunate to have such a fun loving papa to spend sometimes 30 minutes telling her such tales.  It's a special time they share.  Lucky girl.