It opened last Sunday with the arrival of a grandson. Gran (Heather) and I will be running this fun-filled camp for the month of July. The rest of the campers arrive this week.
We started this camp when the kid’s parents moved to the other coast and regular short visits became problematic. Instead of short, day visits, we have the kids come out for a month in the summer, giving us 11 months to recover.
It’s a time to reconnect and build memories. It’s our hope that their time with us will create wonderful memories for them. Or, at least in their young adulthood give them something interesting to talk about in therapy, other than their parents.
The normal things will happen, meals, TV, books, games, trips to the park, art projects, woodwork projects, washing clothes, injuries, laughing, snide remarks about my taste in music, questions about why does my hair look that way in the mornings, and if they’re lucky I might total a car. Seriously, my two older grand children experienced their first automobile crash in the backseat of my car. I even got them a ride in a police car after that, but that’s a story for another day. Ah, fond memories.
So far this week we only have one grandson at camp and at 13 he’s mostly interested in food, football, buying football t-shirts, football cards, the football game Madden, going to the park to throw a football, talking about football and recently he’s developed an interest in football shoes. Personally I am sensing a theme.
One highlight of camp this week was the newly opened Levi’s Football Stadium offers daily tours, so we arranged for a field trip which was thoroughly enjoyed. He was allowed to visit the gift shop after the tour where Gran bought him — wait for it — two footballs. I am a little worried about the cost of the football as so far he’s almost hit a lamp in the house and his uncle was limping badly as we walked back from the park after a little game of catch. Still, we are saving some money, as it turns out that a $5.00 pack of football cards will entertain him for hours – way cheaper than movies or theme parks. Just wish we would have discovered that fact before the movie and theme park.
The next highlight of the week has been the cats. He was here at the house last year when they appeared and he’s been delighting in trying to get them to eat out of his hand. Come on, who can’t resist a cute cat? And he’s now determined to make them his friends.
There was one bad incident with the cats, well with one of the cats and a skylight.
I assure you no cats were harmed during the following events. Second, cats and skylights don’t mix. It goes like this: On Wednesday Socks kitty found out how to climb onto the roof. He also discovered that the skylight over the atrium is partly open to let in fresh air. Sock’s next discovery was that the screen in the skylight won’t hold the weight of a cat. I dare say that Socks was likely as surprised to find himself on the atrium floor, as I was, to find the skylight screen leaning next to the front door when I came home from work.
Now I would have thought that was enough fun for one week, but Thursday Heather discovered a “physical comedy” routine that ‘football boy’ found very entertaining. I was at work when it happened and found out about it by text message.
Around mid day I get this message, “You know what happened to the screen yesterday, well today is worse. From, B.”
My first thought was, “what can be worse than a cat falling through a skylight?”
My second thought was, “whatever it is, I hope it’s covered by my homeowner’s policy.”
My third thought was, “Why is the teenager texting from Gran’s phone?”
As I was preparing to drive like a maniac home, I received this picture of our brand new sliding screen door in the cat room.
Our brand new screen door. Good thing my many skills include screen door repair.
Yes, it’s been forcibly removed from the frame. At first I thought, it was the cats jumping at the screen, but after further text exchanges with the youthful football player I realized that it was Gran who had walked full speed into a closed screen door, knocked the screen out, and in the process knocked the lenses out of her glasses.
Even now days later, the mere mention of screens can bring on fits of laughter.
Friday we enlisted the services of Uncle K to help entertain, and allow us time to have some recovery from this week’s fun. Saturday I dropped them off to see a movie and went back to repair the screens. Yes, I know how to fix window screens. No, I won’t fix yours.
I have skipped over some of the fun we’ve had to keep this post short. Someday I’ll tell you about the bacon chocolate chip cookie incident and why our children are obsessed with checking expiration dates on our food.
We have two more grandkids arriving along with their two adults and all expecting a fun-filled time. Personally, I am hoping for a boring week, but just in case I am going to stop by the drug store and stock up on first aid supplies.
Well, Uncle and grandson just took a ladder out and are heading up to the roof to trim that vine I can’t reach anymore. Yeah, better bring up Google maps and refresh my memory on the fastest route to the emergency room.
Till next week,
Andrew
Andrew's View of the Week 