GRANDKIDS PART 2?

I spent another Thursday with my grandchildren. With school looming in the future I really have one week left with the final week playing golf here in the morning with a middle school football game at 5 and the rabbit show at the fair after that. They start back to school right after Labor Day. I think we were all tired on Thursday. We did not accomplish much. We wrapped up a few details on our projects. We still have England to pursue (although we did learn about William the Conquer's Doomsday book in 1086). The most laughs were when my grandson asked if I wanted to sword fight. We have not done this for years. The swords are not nerf but plastic and large. I won the first contest by knocking the sword out of his hand. I won the battle with my granddaughter and then they had a match to see who would meet me in the championship. So my grandson and I paired off again and he won. I got to laughing so hard I could not even swing the sword. It was great fun. I will be down there again this week. I missed going down about 3 weeks in July - one week they were on vacation and 2 weeks I was not able to go down due to an outpatient medical procedure. However they came up twice for a total of about 7 days. So all in all I was able to spend some quality time with them.

GRANDKIDS

It has been a few weeks since I last posted. The grandchildren visited last weekend while their parents were on a get-a-way with friends in the Hocking Hills area. Friday was rainy so we shopped for a few school clothes in the AM> and went to the driving range in the afternoon. Saturday I was at the zoo with them. They had picked an animal to learn about and my granddaughter had picked toads and my grandson had picked the silverback gorilla. We saw the wallabies and then headed over to view the apes and gorillas. We then went to the zoo's museum and saw a small display for the Australian Great Barrier Reef and found an amphibian exhibit with frogs and toads and other truly obnoxious bugs (the cockroach exhibit was particullary distubing). Since we had been to the zoo in July we just spent 1 1/2 hours there and came home. We then played golf in the late afternoon. Sunday we went to the pool for awhile and then played golf again. The evenings were spent playing board games - Clue and Aggravation. They did not even bring their electronic devices. It was a very cool 3 days - they are such fun to be with. I was very impressed that they actually did their research on their animals and their presidents. We still have a few more things to learn this summer. We have President Martin Van Buren left, England and Java. We have learned some things about Hawaii, Texas, John Quincy Adams, John Tyler, William Henry Harrison and Andrew Jackson (does anyone remember Johnny Horton's song "The Battle of New Orleans"?). We picked these presidents cause they were included in a set of Pez Dispensers.

RAIN

This week we exchanged one granddog for two grandkids. A very fair exchange. The weather was not very condusive to having grandchildren visiting. We went to the movies twice. The first one was Despicable Me2 and even grandpa went. The next was Monster University. You also have to consider that the previous week I saw Epic and that makes the last three movies that I saw were all animated movies. They were all very good but probably I would rank Monster University first and the other two tied for a close second. The kids fished twice and caught some big bass. We played Clue and pool ("Bob Jackson" actually won 2 games to 1 over "Susie Q McGilicutty"). We had lunch at Hothead Burrito and generally had a fun time with lots of laughs. We get everyone back in about 3 weeks (dog and kids) for about 4-5 days. I just love summer.

YOU GOTTA LOVE WILDLIFE

This past 11 days we took care of one of our granddogs while the family was on vacation. Yesterday we exchanged her for the two grandkids. We were sitting in the family room whiling away time until we went to Despicable Me2 and our resident blue heron flew in. Neither of the kids had seen it before so we watched it for a minutes. Suddenly it dipped it's head int

o the lake and came up with a bluegill - a rather large bluegill in fact. We watched it for another few moments and then it swallowed it whole. I will try to put up some of the pictures so you can see it.

4th of JULY

As much as I love summer, I feel as though the days are more like winter with all of the gray clouds.  I really do need sunshine to be a productive member of society.  My mother always was able to work around the house on cloudy days so that she could "play" on the sunny days.  I really only feel like accomplishing things on sunny days and therefore........ it has been a nonproductive few days.  We have had one of the granddogs with us for about 11 days.  It is really nice to have her here.  Really the only negative is that she injured her ACL and so I try not to have here run much so it will try to heel.  We check the back yard for wildlife and so far the geese have not been around much and the ducks have not come in much.  One day while she was laying in the yard near the bird feeders, several ducks came up.  I have no idea what they thought the large black "thing" was in the yard but they were definitely surprised when she took off after them.  She has not been pleased with the thunderstorms and the fireworks but she deals with it ok.  We took her out last night for a doggy ice cream and she really!! liked that.  I will miss here when she returns home to her family.  There is nothing like being greeted by a dog when you come home.  They are so loving.