Missing Everybody

I sure am going to miss all the fun that was going on around my house the last couple of weeks. All of the distractions and laughing and messes were some good therapy for me. It did me good. When life gets tough, family is what makes it all better. Here's a bit of what was going on:


Here the cousins are playing out on the lawn.


The girls picking peas.


The boys picking peas.


They were all having a blast shelling the peas and playing Phase 10. I didn't know kids thought picking and shelling peas were so much fun. But they kept at it and when all was done, you should have seen the pea pods all over the lawn!


I wasn't about to tell them that shelling peas is a lot of work. The kids worked at it until there was a huge bowl of peas we cooked for supper.


Here everybody is enjoying pizza, burritos and home-grown-and-kid-shelled peas. And guess what? They ate all their peas!


The boys loved picking bouquets of my flowers.


Here's Hamilton holding an armful. He's such a doll! He kept trying to sneak up behind me and "kick my can." But I got him myself a couple of times. I'm still not too old to get him back!


The boys loved playing in the dirt. You should have seen the dirt left in the bathtub after the boys took a bath and all the water was drained. I could have planted a garden of more peas! Hamilton loved taking a bubble bath in my big tub EVERY night!


The girls had tons of fun playing with some play-doh. It's amazing what you can find at Grandma's house. These girls found a play-doh machine their parents played with when they were these kids' ages. It kept them busy for quite some time.


On Father's Day we went up to the property in Midway and roasted hot dogs on a make-shift campfire. This was not your usual type of bonfire made with logs of wood, but I suppose it served its purpose. I swear the coals kept slipping through the grate until there were hardly enough left to roast our marshmallows.


Mercedes didn't care about eating hotdogs. She was going for the rootbeer!


Here's Mercedes just being cute!


This is Grandpa J taking 'er easy and having a nap.


This is Papa relaxing and being shy when he realized I was taking his picture.


Here's Mercedes again, just being cute and playing some peek-a-boo.


After everybody left, today I went out on the back lawn while Grandpa J was mowing the grass. This is what I came across. I am not sure if this is some type of alien sign that one reads from outer space or whether the grand kids were thinking of starting a fire in the backyard. The rocks were very meticulously placed in a circle. They also found some old dried up chunks of sheetrock and "graffitied" my back patio, but the rain washed it away before I could get a picture.


And then, of course, here are the infamous airplanes left all over the house. They made some pretty fancy ones that were beautifully colored, but they must have thrown them away before they left. Here are nine of the ones they made. I found airplanes in my plants, behind the television, up on my ledge and under the table. I love to find 'em. I pause to remember how much fun my grandchildren are and how much I love them all. I'm sure as time passes, I'll find more hiding in the crooks and crannies of my house bringing back those fond memories of when they were here and making me shed a tear or two.