fourth of july

Fourth of July they have a boat parade at the lake.  People decorate their boats and at 1:00 in the afternoon, they circle the lake.  

We did not participate.  Puh-leeze.  We're far too lazy for that nonsense.

The boat above?  Barb, Mark's wife, gave that to Little Jay.  It's her dad's boat, and Big Jay put his old 10 hp on it, and it fun.  

This is a fact though. We didn't know Little Jay was terribly nearsighted when he was a kid.  (I am too, but he's worse.)  We found out when he couldn't pass the eye exam to get his permit.

Yes, a straight A student who passed the written test could not see well enough to be given a permit.

All at once we understood why he was always reluctant to drive this boat as a young teenager.

He couldn't see anything!

It's no fun to drive a boat that way.

GAWD.  You'd think by the FIFTH kid we'd get a little better at this?

Apparently NOT.

(not even in a pharaoh costume)

Useless!

We're useless!

But it's all good now. He has glasses galore and contact lenses.  He sees.

Back to the weekend:

My Sweetie is friends with the neighbor.  Our neighbor also can't see very well, but he hears just fine, and a friendly, chatty child finds a good listener in him.

They are fond of each other.

The boat parade started while I was in the bathroom.

Sheesh!  Wait up!

 There, wasn't that great?

And we're back to our neighbor and The Sweetie, deep in conversation.

July?   You beautiful angel.

I love you so much.   love, Val

a boat ride

 Yes, lovely, the grandparents taking the children for a boat ride, how nice.

Oh my goodness, this whole grandparent thing is so much more entertaining than we ever expected.  love, Val

lilies in the swamp

They bloom in July.  They were blooming the day we bought the place ten years ago.

My Sweetie rides this tiny motorcycle pretty fast.

 Okay, John gave the kids a bag of receipts and papers to burn.  That's fine, except your brother and sister are going to go through the bag and question and laugh about it.   "They spent $127 at TARGET!" Bahahahaha.

Kids are easily amused.

 "He wants us to burn his own business card."

Oh my goodness.

 It's a Where's Waldo picture of the beach.

 Awww, that little face:

 This little face:

 He's always ducking from the camera.

 



This was taken after the closing, when we came back to check out our purchase in detail.  We looked in all around for about an hour before we came home, excited about all the fun we imagined we'd have there.

Julia was born four days later, so we didn't actually get back for two weeks, and now there are a lot more of us, grandchildren we couldn't even imagine  yet.   We would not even meet Heidi's Joe for three more months.

I wonder what the next ten years hold?    love you all, MOM aka GRANDMA, aka Val

cuddly

There are so many pictures from last weekend and this one.

These two are especially sweet.  It's our youngest grandbaby, Mr. Gloves, snuggling with his Aunt Alicia and her Kindle.

Aww, Saturday nights do not come much finer.  love you both, MOM

silly people

Try getting a nice picture here?

Good luck to you.

Too late, too many pictures to make sense of at this hour.

Good night and I love you all SO MUCH.

love, Grandma, aka MOM

4th of July

love, Val

cuteness

 

 

My camera was left at the lake, so all I have is the camera on my phone. It's actually not a bad camera.

 

The other night at Target, as I was looking at cameras--they have no cheapies there, all are over $100--the clerk told me he uses only his phone.

 

Only he has the same stupid phone I do.

He showed me a few trick to minimize blurry-ness, which is the biggest problem I've had.

 

So anyway, today was a lovely grandbaby day--cute kids, ice cream treats, 72 degrees, light breeze. 

That little curly guy in the green shirt could not fall asleep the first time we put him to bed for a nap.  Thirty minutes later there he was calling, "Hey, Everybody!  It's me, Woowee!"

 

Okay, my heart couldn't take that. I fetched him from there and figured we'd try again in an hour.   Then he was tired and slept.

 

b.g was so happy to be read stories to by Tim.  This was pretty nice. 

 

And that's the end of that.  I love you guys. 

 

Love, Grandma, aka MOM