What We Did On Our Summer Vacation....
When I was a little girl, returning to school in September, this was my first assignment. Take out a sheet of paper from my Big Chief tablet and write down all about my summer adventures.
We went on O.N.E. vacation my entire growing-up-life. To Colorado, all eight of us, in a station wagon. We ate bologna sandwiches at roadsides, and slept in a big tent. I thought it a grand adventure when we gathered big rocks and wrote our name in the snow, in Estes Park, in August. Mostly we stayed home all summer, every summer, watching morning cartoons, then venturing outside to play, drinking warm water from the hose, and staying outside til supper. When talk of 'west nile virus' comes up, I tell our kids we used to chase the 'mosquito dope truck' (as we called it), swallowing in big gulps of the insecticide coming out of it! How did any brain cells survive? We swam in sand pits, had lemonade stands, caught crawdads on strings laced with raw bacon, rode bikes, and stole apples from the orchard at the back of the neighborhood. Who needed vacation?
Now I am grown, the kids are grown, the grandkids are growing at an alarming rate, so we got in the minivan and went on a three month 'vacation'. Back home all of 48 hours, after covering right at 7000 miles - here's a quick snapshot of what we did in May....
We took our skinny grandsons to the city beach, and watched them fearlessly run in and out of the freezing water. Temperature was around 60 degrees and didn't phase them in the least.
There is nothing, BTW, to not love about this photo. Grandson Grayson's wet hair plastered to his head, his big ole goggles, sand on his skinny little arms. One of my favorite photos from this summer. We're framing this one for our Idaho townhouse walls.
Don turned this old door into a king size headboard for our townhouse bedroom. I painted it Imperial red :-) Perhaps I can find a photo of the finished project, after we unpack a bit more and find the camera...
We celebrated Mother's Day at a nearby state park, and days old Miss Hallie Grace slept through the entire celebration. It's hard to believe she'll be 10 weeks old this week. More photos of her, with chubby cheeks, to come.
Papa, who grew up in Boulder, Colorado, shared his frisbee-throwing skills with our grandkids. They had a hard time hiding their surprise that Papa knew how to do anything remotely cool. Imagine if they could see him ride a unicycle?! He has, on occasion, shared his yo-yo skills with the grandsons who are mightily impressed. As they should be. At 63 he can still 'walk the dog' and do 'around the world'....
Cutie patootie Sarah Grace, more beautiful by the day, is a fast-moving bundle of squishiness.
We learned this is called SUP, stand up paddle boardings. Caiden was a pro his first attempt. I love his fearless approach to all things new.
More photos of Caiden to come. After mere months of living in Idaho he's on a swim team, just finished his first kid-version triathlon, rides his bike all over the place, loving his new life in the northwest. I love that he's getting to grow up this way.
So we're home, the counters are covered with bins and baskets and piles of stuff we hauled home to Texas. There's not much in the fridge, but an ordered in pizza is keeping us going for now. I've taken a dip in our pool three times in 36 hours, and plan another swim tonight. We've come home to typical weather for August in Texas, but it's still feeling pretty darned good to be home. We're ready to start attending church, watch some preseason football, swim, cookout, eat snow cones, visit the library to restock books (I'll share soon what all I've been reading) and enjoy what is left of summer.
I'll be back soon with June and July photos of our time in the northwest later this week. I'll tell you about our trip to British Columbia (gorgeous, gorgeous!), the visitors who flew to Idaho to see us, some photos of our sweet little Idaho home, and of course our growing grandkids. In the meantime thank you for all the sweet souls who stopped by weekly to see if I'd come up for air. I'll try to do a better job of staying in touch.
We went on O.N.E. vacation my entire growing-up-life. To Colorado, all eight of us, in a station wagon. We ate bologna sandwiches at roadsides, and slept in a big tent. I thought it a grand adventure when we gathered big rocks and wrote our name in the snow, in Estes Park, in August. Mostly we stayed home all summer, every summer, watching morning cartoons, then venturing outside to play, drinking warm water from the hose, and staying outside til supper. When talk of 'west nile virus' comes up, I tell our kids we used to chase the 'mosquito dope truck' (as we called it), swallowing in big gulps of the insecticide coming out of it! How did any brain cells survive? We swam in sand pits, had lemonade stands, caught crawdads on strings laced with raw bacon, rode bikes, and stole apples from the orchard at the back of the neighborhood. Who needed vacation?
Now I am grown, the kids are grown, the grandkids are growing at an alarming rate, so we got in the minivan and went on a three month 'vacation'. Back home all of 48 hours, after covering right at 7000 miles - here's a quick snapshot of what we did in May....
We took our skinny grandsons to the city beach, and watched them fearlessly run in and out of the freezing water. Temperature was around 60 degrees and didn't phase them in the least.
There is nothing, BTW, to not love about this photo. Grandson Grayson's wet hair plastered to his head, his big ole goggles, sand on his skinny little arms. One of my favorite photos from this summer. We're framing this one for our Idaho townhouse walls.
Don turned this old door into a king size headboard for our townhouse bedroom. I painted it Imperial red :-) Perhaps I can find a photo of the finished project, after we unpack a bit more and find the camera...
We celebrated Mother's Day at a nearby state park, and days old Miss Hallie Grace slept through the entire celebration. It's hard to believe she'll be 10 weeks old this week. More photos of her, with chubby cheeks, to come.
Papa, who grew up in Boulder, Colorado, shared his frisbee-throwing skills with our grandkids. They had a hard time hiding their surprise that Papa knew how to do anything remotely cool. Imagine if they could see him ride a unicycle?! He has, on occasion, shared his yo-yo skills with the grandsons who are mightily impressed. As they should be. At 63 he can still 'walk the dog' and do 'around the world'....
We learned this is called SUP, stand up paddle boardings. Caiden was a pro his first attempt. I love his fearless approach to all things new.
More photos of Caiden to come. After mere months of living in Idaho he's on a swim team, just finished his first kid-version triathlon, rides his bike all over the place, loving his new life in the northwest. I love that he's getting to grow up this way.
So we're home, the counters are covered with bins and baskets and piles of stuff we hauled home to Texas. There's not much in the fridge, but an ordered in pizza is keeping us going for now. I've taken a dip in our pool three times in 36 hours, and plan another swim tonight. We've come home to typical weather for August in Texas, but it's still feeling pretty darned good to be home. We're ready to start attending church, watch some preseason football, swim, cookout, eat snow cones, visit the library to restock books (I'll share soon what all I've been reading) and enjoy what is left of summer.
I'll be back soon with June and July photos of our time in the northwest later this week. I'll tell you about our trip to British Columbia (gorgeous, gorgeous!), the visitors who flew to Idaho to see us, some photos of our sweet little Idaho home, and of course our growing grandkids. In the meantime thank you for all the sweet souls who stopped by weekly to see if I'd come up for air. I'll try to do a better job of staying in touch.
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