Too Busy Having Fun

That is why there haven't been any new posts lately! Yes, I've been waaaay too busy having fun. I got back from the east coast visit to the sons, and then worked double-time to finish the final project for my on-line class. Got an A, ta da! Then, I drove up to Utah and picked up three grandchildren. We returned to Las Vegas the next day and commenced "Grandma Camp."  Actually Grandpa was here, too, but since it is initiated by the grandma, I get to name it.

We mostly spend GC eating, swimming, staying up and watching movies, and playing games. Since we live in the Entertainment Capital of the World, ahem...mostly adult entertainment, I know...we also did a few visits to appropriate and fun venues such as the Shark Reef and the Springs Preserve. We had intended to also go to the Tournament of Kings dinner show, but, for the first time since I moved here, I couldn't get tickets on the night I wanted them. Procrastination...bah. However, we did stay in the swimming pool that evening until 9:45 P.M. as a bonus, because it was our last night of GC.

One night, after it got completely dark, we drove out into the desert to look at stars. We took the big air mattress, inflated it, and laid it on the ground and then just gazed at the show overhead. We saw a few shooting stars, and several familiar constellations. Grandpa has an app that you can use for the iPad for star-gazing. You hold it up toward the location in the sky you wish to identify, and the names of the stars, planets and constellations appear on the screen in red letters (so you don't mess up your night vision.) We were doing great, too, till Someone, ahem... said, "I wonder if we'll see any desert animals out there. Night is when they come out. Listen closely--maybe we'll hear a coyote."  Then one of the older cousins gave a little fake coyote howl, and the youngest cousin didn't realize it was a fake coyote howl, and had to climb back into the truck and hide. But, besides that, we actually had a pretty good time looking at stars.

Finally the end of Grandma Camp arrived, and we packed up and drove back up I-15 to their homes. That would be my fifth trip on this highway in a three week time span. Yeah. But, now it almost seems like a shorter drive because I know every inch of it so well. I watched the hay grow, then get cut, then baled, and now they were hauling it. I also saw a lot of amazing fire residue. Between two of my journeys, there was a huge brush fire that closed the interstate, and it was sobering driving along between the blackened swaths of the fire's trail.

Then, after depositing the children with their parents, and sharing our fun adventures, I attended my brother's and sister's reunion at my brother's house. It is so fun to see everyone. There were eight babies born between the 2011 reunion and the 2012 reunion! And four of them that were born within weeks of one another in March and April, were there for us to admire. It is a little disconcerting to realize that now, my sisters and I, are the gray-haired ladies of the oldest generation. I so vividly remember going to reunions with my mother as a child, and, frankly hardly knowing many of the people. But, hey--she had 25 aunts and uncles. But there were so many oldsters there. Now, I are the oldster. 

Then, I got back in the trusty Silverado and drove, one more time, south on I-15, back to the desert. Tomorrow morning: we head even more south! We rented a campground at the beach where we used to live, and some of our kids and the children are rendezvousing there for five days of laying around, digging in the sand, and swimming in the ocean. I'm taking books to read and I intend to lie in the hammock for an hour every day to do so. S'mores and dutch oven potatoes are on the menu. We'll see dolphins and go to the tide pools. I'm really making the most of this summer, as you can tell.

Here are the remaining brothers and sisters. We're still missing Trish...

I'm not really that short, (see below). I must have been standing in a low spot.

However, I am  that chubby...sigh.



We did a lot of this in Grandma Camp.....

We did a lot of this, too.

And we did a lot of this...

And I was informed, one afternoon, that the pool was more fun when Grandpa was there...Well...But, it was true. I mean, Grandma didn't initiate Super Soaker battles. Nor did she teach anyone how to sit on the bottom of the pool, and time how long you could stay down there. She also wasn't the one who tossed you straight up and across the pool from her clasped hands. Boring Grandma...