struggles

The kids were way underslept. You start with getting them up three hours early to catch the airplane. Then there's the time change, the trouble going to sleep in a strange place, the morning noises before they should be waking up, and it all adds up to easily upset freakazoid kids. Given how little sleep they were operating on, they managed pretty darn well. But, I wish they'd been on their best behavior for the grandparents, not their worst.

We never know when to eat. That's part of the whole time change thing. Like me, my kids need to eat regularly or they freak out and in addition to being awful, they refuse to eat.

Rose says no. Hey, Rose, we're going to a new beach. I don't want to. Rose, we're going out for ice cream. Ice cream again? John reminds me this has been her personality her whole life. She's a homebody and doesn't want to try new things. It makes me insane when we plan something special, and she shoots it down.

David doesn't eat enough, sleep enough, and steals the checkers off the checkerboard that his sister is playing on.

Once again, John and I did not make it to a movie.


successes

My back did not go out. It's possible to live with pain and be pleasant and make decisions and carry luggage down five walkways and in and out of elevators and make up stories about the monkey who met a fairy under the waterfall, but it's so much much easier not in pain. Frankly, I don't know why my back did not go out since that's happened the last two times I took long flights. I'm just grateful.

I got lots of sleep. I went to bed at 11 or 12 and the kids got us up at 9:30. Unlike all the previous visits, the kids did not wake us up in the middle of the night. We got to sleep downstairs in the yellow room. Whoohoo!

John' mom had a great dinner ready for us when we arrived, and we just ate that meal for the next three nights. That meant no one had to worry about cooking.

Despite her initial reluctance, Rose loved all the special events we planned.

We went to neighbor's farm and petted the kitties, ducks, chickens, and goats. We also fed the adorable goats.

We went to Mill's Hollow which has the best skipping rocks I've ever had the pleasure of chucking. They were the flattest lightest rocks I've ever seen. Even David could make them skip. I couldn't get over how large and empty the park was. I thought we had some big parks in Seattle, but this was huge. We were in the country after all.

We went out for ice cream (twice) and pizza, and David was well behaved in the restaurant for 95% of the time. I remember going to the pizza place the last two years and having to walk him all around the dining room and the back gardens. This time he chatted and colored.

We visited Grammy and Grandpa Joe's new house. The kids went wild running through the rooms without furniture.

The weather was hot but not too hot. Visiting in June instead of August meant we missed the corn and tomatoes, but it made for much saner weather.

Our best event was the trip to Lake Eerie. I don't know why we haven't done it before this. It was only a half hour drive and the beach was fantastic. Ok, the sand was too hot to walk on barefoot, but I made the children a trail of wet sand. We built sand castles, played in the water, had lunch, and did it all again.

The main purpose of our visit, besides hanging with the grandparents, was to help with the big move. They are moving into Kendel, a great retirement community in their town. They get a brand new house that is a third the size of their current house, so some serious downsizing is happening. I have to give them credit for their amazing organizing. We showed up, and they handed us a list with a room by room record of every item we needed to decide about. John's old violin, yes. Joe's camera from high school with the pop up bellows, yes. Other old cameras, no. There are some hilarious school papers which I will be excerpting when they arrive. Going through the stuff was really fun. They had hired some kids to help babysit, so the grown-ups could concentrate. We actually got to talk about Sue's mother's art and Sue's father's barometer.

Despite David announcing every night that he didn't want to be there, he wanted to go home, the kids had a fabulous time with their grandparents, and the adults actually got to talk to each other.