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I LOVE your idea and can't wait to do the same with my grand daughter who is 2 years old now. I worked long hours while raising my three children alone and did a similar thing on much smaller scale with each of my three children - giving them each an hour or so alone with me each week. There things might be more activity than you would wish for but we have always loved the outdoors. My son had few interests and was the most difficult for me to connect with. Things he LOVED: flying a kite, roller skating, miniture golf, video games, rafting down a little fork of a nearby river that took us a number of weeks to build the raft from trashed lumber(bad time of year for you and I don't know where you live in Washington), BBQ breakfast on a tiny grill in the wilderness park (bacon on toast with hot cereal and fruit brought in a thermas was fast and easy then we would go hiking. I know you could take easy snacks without the trouble of the grill but he LOVED to eat hot food in the wide open spaces and it just tasted better there. Things he did not like but your grand son may: bicycle a along wetlands or beach or natural trail, walk thru a botanical garden, plant a tree (my carrotwood and palm trees were always dropping seedlings)in the countryside, scrapbooking, ceramics you mentioned, bought him a disposable camera and spent a day learning basis photography skills and taking pictures of family members, pets, friends, school or whatever he wished for a "My Life in 1974" (or whatever year it was), made a family tree collage from baby pictures of all the family members, built a bird house, bat house, visited the zoo, visited the farm that sells parrots, visited an ostrige farm, visited a llama farm, visited a turkey farm, had him write a story, and draw illistrations that I had bound into a book but now you can buy kits over Amazon.com for books you can have published and dishes they paint, send in and have made permanent. In fact, I have seen kits on Amazon.com to paint their own umberella, table lamp, cup, bird bath, bird feeder, bird house, etc. Also Home Depot or Lowes have kits for bird houses, bird feeders. I don't know if ANY of these ideas can work for you, but good look and I am sure you will get some GREAT suggestions. My girls LOVED to go for "high tea" where a friend of mine who owned a British tea house. (I was a nurse and massage/accupressurist and we would do trades). I do not know that your grandson would enjoy high tea. Also, the children LOVED to go to a really fancy restaurant (we could not afford to eat at) but on special occasions I would order each a Shirley Temple type of drink and we could overlook the harbor or bay to end a wonderful day. Oh, we use to drive to Disneyland and watch the grand finale fireworks in the Disneyland Hotel sipping a juice or milk. I don't know if you have anything in your area that you can get a "piece of".

I appreciate the later schedules to some degree. As a mother who works outside the home, I find it frustrating when activities are scheduled for 4:30. My child goes to a rural school and I do have some driving time to pick her up from after school care and return to the city where most games are played. Besides, I usually do not get off work until 5:30. Gymnastics was a bear when she competed and the practices started at 4:30. I do not want her to not be able to participate just because I work outside the home. It is hard when they get home late, though. Sometimes her games are scheduled at 8:30 so the younger children can play 6:30 and 7:30. She is 10. In these cases, we usually get home around 10:00. She uses time at the after school program for homewrk, so that is not usually too much of an issue. I am unique I guess in that my child does not sleep a lot. She takes melatonin by dr.'s orders. I wish she could sleep more, but I guess it is an advantage for those late nights. She usually cannot sleep until 11:00 anyway. And yes, before anyone asks, we limit caffeine, tv, stimulants, etc. The kid lays in bed and talks or sings to herself.

Welcome Suzanne, my name is Anne from the southern most city in Canada which is even south of the US border. haha when I was a kid I wanted to be called Anne Louise Lulabelle. I would love to have a chicken or two. My Grandfather had a chicken coop and it was fun collecting the eggs and feeding them. He also raised and raced homing pigeons. Rhizo, I like that name Dorie.