Grammy Camp 2010

What in the world is Grammy Camp, you ask? That's what we're calling the 4 days last week that I spent up at the "tin can cabin" with my two oldest grandkids. We really did have a ball and I will absolutely, positively recover from all the activity by Christmas, maybe sooner....just kidding. But I did go to sleep at 9pm when I tucked them into bed each night. We all needed the extra sleep. So, let's see, what exactly did we do at Grammy Camp? Jackson took full advantage of the paved roads in the camp to skateboard. We celebrated Sydney's birthday a few days early so she could open her present of skates and I don't think I saw her leave the cabin once without those things on her feet the entire 4 days.

I gained several more strands of grey hair while hanging on to the sides of the golf cart as "speed demon" Jackson learned to race....er, um.....as he learned to safely traverse the roads in the campground. We had several downpour thunderstorms which resulted in huge puddles. You can see where I'm going with this, can't you? Yes, he asked if he could "go fast" through a puddle and I said "of course". Holy cow! He floored it and water gushed up through the floorboard and flew out the sides of the cart spraying a good 6 feet on all sides as he gleefully aimed for another puddle. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. I think we'll keep that information to ourselves, ok?

The kids visited several times a day with Roxie and Jessica, the beautiful resident parrot and cockatiel. Both of them speak and whistle and Sydney was convinced they spoke short sentences to her. Also, all our friends at the campground now know the kids and they had a great time visiting with everyone and their various pets, including a brand new puppy named Peaches that Sydney fell in love with. One of the women baked us chocolate chip cookies to celebrate Syd's birthday. Another buddy dropped off firewood for our campfire. Such good people.

We did a craft each day: first they painted flip flops as an unusual "letter home" and we mailed them to mom and dad like kids used to do when I went to summer camp(except we used to mail post cards); then we made bouncey balls from a kit; we put together an adorable puzzle entitled "100 elephants and a mouse"; we made roll out cookies in the shape of construction tools for Jackson and palm trees for Sydney; we made our own popsicles from strawberries; we made our own pizzas; and finally, as the temps soared to 102 we had a small campfire to roast marshmallows because I had promised them we'd make s'mores. Hey, a promise to grandkids is a promise.

I hope Grammy Camp can be repeated each year and that it will create lasting memories for these funny, energetic, well behaved, adorable,(should I stop now?) creative kids. Think I'll go take a nap.

Grey haired Grammy signing off,

Debbie

TA-DA!!

Yes, it's finally done....the "tin can cabin" officially has a new functioning bathroom. Yippee! Joel and I spent several weekends tiling and installing and tweaking, but it was worth it. We have a system when it comes to remodeling, we decide what "look" we're going for, then I research ideas and come up with a design concept and present them to Joel. He counters with his ideas and we compromise somewhere in the middle. It usually involves me showing him a lot of pictures of what I thought would work in our decorating scheme. He hesitates (mainly because he has a hard time visualizing what I'm describing), we compromise some more and then we purchase our materials.

Then when the project is complete, he says something along the lines of "Now I see what you were talking about. You were right, it does look better this way." Hmmmmmm.....and it only took us 24 years of marriage to work out this little dance we do.....each and every project.

I really wanted some log cabin feel in the bath so we found some smooth river rock and used it as an accent on the shower head wall and the shower floor. That did the trick. And, yes, we do our own tiling. Joel wants me to measure and install and he mans the wet saw and does all the cuts for me. Together we work pretty smoothly until it's time to grout. Can I just say it like I feel it? I hate to grout. No, really, I detest applying grout. After an hour of working on this project's grout, I called in recruits and drafted Billy, our helper dude, to take my place. I had just run out of steam.

Oh, yeah, and how do you like the fishy toilet paper holder? The original bathroom had the toilet paper holder, 2 matching towel bars, tissue holder and wastebasket all done in logs. Who knows how old these things are but I couldn't resist reusing them in our new bath. I think they add just the cabin-y feel we were going for.

Like I said at the beginning, ta-da! Whew! I think we're going to take a few months off now. Thank you, very much,

Debbie