40 Days and 40 Nights

Doesn't it look like all the grown-ups took a nap and sent the children out to play in the ocean?  Have fun kids, call you when dinner's ready!

  

 

 That's not exactly what happened.  We made Lane carry the baby monitor so we could still hear them.  The weatherman must not have gotten THE memo requesting sunshine because after Monday, anybody venturing outside risked instant drowning.  And not by ocean waves, by humongous and unrelenting raindrops and hurricane force winds.  So we came up with indoor fun.  Avery freshened up and then took advantage of the free time to balance her checkbook.


Ian practiced pinching faces.  He got quite good at it.
 

Some of the kids just went with jumping.  

Then it was drive-in movie time.  First everybody had to build their wheels.

 

 Then the concession stand.  What's a movie without goodies?

















With gas being so expensive they decided to go with an alternative fuel.

Landgon and Lane just used the time to catch up on some really good stories.  Did you know Grandpa Dude can get Thomas the Train on his Kendle?  I think Ian was off somewhere practicing his cheek pinching.  Yes, Bre, I think that's a marshmellow in his hand but for the record, I didn't give it to him.

Thanks Awesome Family.  

The Trip

We started our trip on an evil airplane.  This one isn't particularly evil.  They are all evil.  And it was very early in the morning.  I suggested we travel by bike but, Nooooooooooo.  Actually I surprised myself and didn't even throw up once.  

San Diego was cool.

So was this guy.

Next was Carol's casita.  You could literally reach outside and pick a grapefruit or lemon.  I may have stuffed a couple in my bag and brought them home but if questioned by the California Fruit Police,  I will deny it so don't even bother turning me in.  

Then we moved to San Palm Something.  

Lots of flowers and waterfalls, just like my yard at home in my head.  I spent time wandering around pretending I knew where I was going because the place was kind of set up like a maze.  Combine my keen sense of direction with multiple look-alike casitas and pathways designed to confuse and you get lots of exercise.

Home again.  No room service.  No 75 degree weather.  But my own pillow and lemon pie is yummy.  

Evidently there is one thing that dementia has not been able to steal from mom.  She loves babies.  She and Lane have a hand patting thing going on.  She pats his.  He pats hers.




Add one more generation.

 

Grandma Great had a brief stay in the hospital this week.  The nurse said she was the cutest patient she had ever had.  

The problem with taking pictures of icicles is that the ground is also ice.  Even my massive weight wouldn't crack it.  I just wanted to share Pendleton's current status as a deep freeze.

And I didn't get any real "before" pictures but here are the durings and afters.  Gary kept muttering something about why in heck did I use sooo much glue when I put this formica on.  Funny Gary.

And here's the "after".  Now who wants to help me paint the walls.  And make new window treatments.

 Whatever we were using to bribe Tate to be a male model was really working this day.

Not so much, this one.  Just give me the candy.  Or order my pizza.

 

 If anybody needs a stylist, I think Taeg's available.  Love them all to PIECES.

Seriously, I've got to find a place in my house to turn into the "ball room".    Maybe Grandma Great would like to give up part of her room.  And Travis did an excellent job of picking the towel colors in their awesome, super cool remodeled bathroom.  Melissa, if you build me a ball room, I'll pick out the ball colors.

I wanted to show Tate what the "fridge" looked like today.  

 And I just liked the tractor in this pic.

And this is the tree that Dave spent half a day putting lights on, only to have it short out when he was done.  Then I put Travis and Melissa on it and they put in a token effort.  Not that I didn't appreciate their token effort.  I'll take token effort any day.  But bottom line was, it still wasn't working.  I was running out of people.  I discovered if I jiggled the connections just the right way we had LIGHT.  So periodically every night you will see me standing outside in 20 degree weather jiggling connections.

Today We went On a Walk

When Tate comes over he always likes to walk to the "fridge" which is his quaint way of saying "bridge".  He invited his sister and gal pal, YaYa to join us, knowing that his grandma has been working out and would have no trouble pushing three children in a stroller up mountainous territory.  

After awhile we switched and they pushed me.  

Avery declared herself a free agent and spent some time debating whether this puddle was big enough to "puddle jump"Things were going well until the stroller veered too far to the left and jumped over the edge.  

Luckily I was no longer in it but this involved me climbing down steep, rocky terrain in my sandals to retrieve it.  No problem, I am super-grandma.  And we now know my phone can take a lickin and keep on tickin.  Because it was in the stroller.  Was.  

We made it home.  I have had my work-out.  No Jillian Michaels tonight.  Just chocolate.