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Before I delve back into the joys (and pitfalls) of renovation, I am going to recount my successes and failures of Gram Camp (grandmother/father camp…mostly mother) for my only two, fabulous granddaughters (ages 3 and 6).  They are the apples of my eye, my joie de vivre, my angels.  I have spent several months planning the agenda for this, my first foray into a planned agenda for these little tykes.  Even with my experience raising four children, I went into this thinking my spreadsheet would be followed  meticulously to perfection.  Elaborate breakfast at 8:30.  Activity from 10-12.  Lunch 12-1.  Activity 1:30-3:30.  Snack 3:30.  Downtime.  Dinner at 6:30 with cooking lessons at each meal and snack. Followed perfectly every. single. day.  Bwahahahaha!

Some things did go on schedule–I picked them up from the airport on time!   This was on a Tuesday, and they had just gotten back from 6 weeks in Japan that previous Sunday, so there was some jet lag going on, but that didn’t stop them too much, but did take a couple of days to get back on a sleeping schedule.  With all the planning that I did, I still didn’t have lunch ready for them coming in from the airport, so we stopped at Burgerocity in Folsom, CA, on the way home because it had such high ratings. Just a head’s up, for the price just go to In-and-Out.  Not much difference.  Okay, okay, for those of you burger afficianados, Burgerocity does use 100% Hereford and has more choices, but still…

Another head’s up, on the first day of Gram Camp take it easy.  Pool time.

Making homemade popsicles and homemade gummy bears to be ready later.

Easy cooking lesson for dinner…prefab flatbread and pizza toppings.  Easy stuff.

Day Two:  This is really day one, but who’s counting.  Still thinking of perfection, I get up before everyone else and make strawberry and banana cars for breakfast (and add cereal to the menu because one of them doesn’t like bananas and it just isn’t enough).

Already going off schedule on the first full day,  we decide to go to the water park.  Wanting to leave early so that we can be there when it opens at 10 a.m., I get everything together.  Sunscreen–check, towels–check, swim shoes–check.  However, my older granddaughter just sleeps and sleeps, and who can wake her since she is still on Japan time…but when it is edging past 10:30 we drag her out of bed.  Arriving to the park at just before noon, there is not a single parking place to be had anywhere and it is crowded, so we ditch the water park.  Since my nephew’s wife just had a baby yesterday (several weeks early), we decide to buy flowers and a treat and drop by the hospital.  This buying process takes a few hours, as those kinds of things can do, because we have to go to several places to find the right thing.  Ends up the places we finally buy at were in a couple of blocks from the water park where we started out…so is the hospital.   Go figure.  Nothing gets done off my list, except for breakfast and dinner–Nothing.   Girls get to spend time with their grandpa in the pool in the evening…so all is well.   They are still the best granddaughters in the entire universe.

Day Three:  Still maintaining that we are going to get back on track, I get up early and make grape caterpillars and an orange slice bird for breakfast.  Go me!

We are now going to make a tic-tac-toe board with painted rocks for the X’s and O’s!  My plan now is to find rocks in the upper back yard where there is a drainage bed for when it rains (which is only in the winter.  Ever.  Not a drop from May-November…now how weird is that).  Anyway, I am envisioning finding these nice, smooth, oval river rocks (maybe I should have taken a look back there prior to this plan).  What we find is far from that, as you will see in the photos.  My plan is to have them paint cute little lady bugs and tadpoles on these rocks to use for tic-tac-toe.  You know really pretty, crafty things.  What I didn’t remember was that a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old would be doing the painting, and that they would have their own vision.

My vision vs reality:

But the fun they had painting them and the fun they had playing the game they had personally made far outweighed the vision.

We break for lunch and popsicles.

For the rest of the afternoon I had planned on playing a beanbag game with hula hoops that just doesn’t happen (hula hoops are still in the box these many weeks later, as are the beanbags).  Might in interject here that I had a very long list of items to order that I wanted to use.  At about two weeks out from “camp” day 1, I made a plan to go shopping for these items.  That really didn’t sound very appealing to me, running around hither and yon to procure those things in the heat (not to mention not knowing where to go), so I spent an  evening ordering everything from Amazon, from soap-making items to the hula hoops to molds for the gummi bears.  Now I know why people get hooked on the shopping channel, getting all those boxes delivered to my doorstep was so exciting!

Back to Day Three, no beanbag game, just a little more downtime for me and their mom, and a little TV babysitting for the girls, and a great dinner of pureed cauliflower, zucchini fritters and corn on the cob.  Girls loved it.  I LOVE the pureed cauliflower and most always make it instead of potatoes now.  It is just YUMMY!  Make sure to think of healthy dinners and lunches, because you are going to have some not so healthy ones too.  If you want recipes for those things, just send a note.  The pureed caulifower looks just like mashed potatoes and so the kids never know the difference and the fritters were just yummy.   Then I got to watch Ever After High (oh boy!) before bed…every night.   These girls are full of life and energy…a  lot more energy than I have.  I don’t know what I would have done without their Mom here to help!  Hint:  Get help for your camp!

So we are now September 12, the day after 9/11.  As all people do, I remember that day very well.  Funny how major catastrophes indelibly print those days in your memory.   I won’t go into the day’s minutiae for you, but I will say that I thought we, as a country, would prepare itself for the Islamic crap that was to follow.  We didn’t.  We elected a (p)resident whose middle name is Hussain and who spent his early years in an Islamic country and who is the biggest Islamapologist there is.  Political correctness is now rampant, which leads to loss of freedom of speech, which is part of what America’s greatness comes from.  Heck, we have a bill introduced into Congress, H.Res 569, that would protect Islam from hateful rhetoric, among other things.  What a load of Malarkey!  Everyone who reads this should call or write their reps to kill this NOW.  All over the world.  Every. Single. Day. an atrocity is committed in the name of Islam, and the Western governments continue to let them invade our countries and commit those atrocities in our countries.  Our governments should be tried for treason.  Okay, that’s what I’m thinking about 9/11.  Instead of protecting us more, they are importing the terror in the form of “refugees.”  Refugees my !@*)!@.   Merkel, especially, should be hanged, drawn, and quartered, after a trial, of course.

On another noted, if you think that Hillary’s medical issues are something like “walking pneumonia,” then you’re part of the problem.  It is obviously much more serious than that.  And if you think her doctor tells you the truth, then you probably think Hillary tells the truth also !  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!