Ode to Granny

This weekend our family visited the beach for one last hurrah before the cold weather sets in. Our trip was much like the rest of our beach trips....we did some bike riding/walking, Colin and Pryce spent a good bit of time on the beach trying to dig a hole in the sand to Colin's waist, MK observed everything around her and eventually tried the ocean out, the boys played ping pong by the pool (MK observed this too and I am thinking that if she could have, she would have offered them some tips on how it is really done!) and we tried to relax. On our trip home, we made a side trip to visit the USS Yorktown at Patriots Point. The boys had a lot of fun climbing on all of the ships! That is our weekend in a nutshell. However, I must say that I spent a lot of time Saturday thinking of my grandmother. I was reminded of her funny little sayings on Saturday morning when Ryan, myself and Mason-Kate were sitting in the kitchen having breakfast. For whatever reason, MK decided to place her feet on the table. At first I was appalled and then, as I watched her, I felt like laughing because she was just so relaxed hanging out with her two little feet on the table eating cheese toast. I did what every blogging parent in America does, I took pictures. And as I took pictures, Ryan said "Just as Granny used to say, this is a vacation, not a Continuation!", so we let MK eat with her feet on the table! I know, gross, but as she ate with her feet on the table, the boys were in the den eating their own breakfast in front of the TV that had already been on for hours....definitely vacation. Throughout the day, I was reminded of these sayings....Colin told me he was bored at one point so I told him to "go play in the traffic". HUH? was his response....I explained to him that this is what my grandmother used to tell me if I dared to say I was bored at her house....she lived way out in the "country" as we liked to call it, on a long two lane road that only saw traffic when she and my grandfather decided to go somewhere....at another point on Saturday, Pryce asked me what time it was and I asked him "are you taking medicine or catching a bus?" HUH? is the response I got from him as well so I explained to him that it didn't matter what time it was because he didn't really NEED to know, we were supposed to be relaxing. The grand reminder of Granny came on Saturday afternoon. Mason-Kate was asleep in her room, and we told the boys they were going to have rest time for an hour. So, after a few voiced complaints, the boys went to their respective resting rooms in the house. Pryce fell asleep. Colin, on the other hand, decided to write a story for his friend....and he kept coming in and out of his room, which honestly was driving us a little nuts as we were trying to take naps ourselves. Anyway, at some point, Colin came out of his room and told us that he was hearing a scratching noise in the closet of his room. A half asleep Ryan told Colin to go to his room and stay in there....we would check on the scratching in a little while. Keep in mind that Colin tends to be a bit dramatic at times (no clue where he gets that!). Fast forward an hour, Pryce wakes up and I assume that Colin has fallen asleep as we have not heard from him in awhile. So, being that it is late in the afternoon, I suggest to Ryan that we go wake Colin up. Ryan goes upstairs and into Colin's room. In a few moments, he comes out with this stunned look on his face. He was kind of laughing as he said "Beth, there is a baby SQUIRREL in the closet and the mom squirrel is in the wall trying to get to it!". At that moment, I could hear my grandmother saying to us all, "Well, now we are in a mell of a hess!" as I sat there asking Ryan what in the world we were going to do. All is well that ends well, Ryan caught the baby squirrel and took him outside to live in the wild, we sealed the hole in the ceiling where the squirrel apparently had fallen through, we called someone to come get the other squirrel out of the wall, and we spent the evening apologizing to poor Colin for not rushing into his rescue the moment he said he heard something suspicious. It made for an interesting, unforgettable afternoon.

"This is a vacation, not a continuation"

"Now we're in a mell of a hess"

USS Yorktown

Hanging out at Seabrook