The Sevens, or Grandma's Fancy Camp

It took a while to find a 2day/1night date for all three of my 7 year-old granddaughters, but Monday was the big day. The campers arrived...bade farewell to the moms...and sat down to a chocolate milk "tea" party. We erected our reading tent and began reading the first of 3 Fancy Nancy books...then we wrote our favorite "fancy" words in our camp journals. We spray-painted our golden camp treasure boxes, decorated them with jewels, ribbons, flowers and stickers. All in the first 2 hours!





We had fun in the park, but were simply disgusted that the fountain wasn't spraying!!


Oh, so fancy!!!!!!!!

MMMM..S'Mores

This is a total fakeout...there was NO sleeping for a long, long time!

The culminating croquet tournament!

In Honor of Emil Drzayich

Dallin was invited back to play in the Eagle High School first annual Alumni Baseball Game in honor of Coach Drzayich, who passed away last year. Scholarship money was raised and 30+ alumni players showed up. They played the current Eagle Vipers (Legion Team). 10 alumni pitchers were each scheduled to pitch one inning...D pitched in the 8th. By that time the alumni team was down 11-4...oops! Dallin hadn't pitched in about 2 years and was a little nervous. After Reed watched him warm up, he was a little nervous too. D had asked me if I had any stomach "crunchies." NONE WHATSOEVER!!! SO, Dallin took the mound...first pitch, a strike! That was good...D struck out the first batter, and the second batter, and the third batter flew out. 3 up, 3 down...11 pitches in all. He's still got it!

A Special Group!

We celebrate our wedding anniversary with a group of friends who were all married the same year (4 couples within a 2 week span in May-June of 1970)...we have been celebrating together since year 10 when we discovered this interesting fact! Some have moved away, some have missed a few years here and there, but, THIS year we were ALL together again! What a wonderful evening!

Bailey's "Grandma Camp"

Bailey fortified herself with the cheesiest pizza ever!



Cut, sew, ta-da!! Cute apron, Bails!


Bailey made a special poppy seed cake for Reed's mom's birthday...from scratch!
I decided to hold "Grandma Camps" this summer for the grands. Bailey, the oldest, had her very own camp with me. I planned activities that I hoped would be entertaining as well as allow us to just enjoy each other! These were just the first of many activities...we hiked, gathered leaves for leaf rubbing pictures, crafted a camp journal with photos, attended Dallin's alumni baseball game, tried to eat Chinese food (couldn't find the place!) settled for American, and delved into the world of jewelry-making at a specialty bead store...Bailey just got her ears pierced and made some beautiful beaded earrings for the future. (They hang down from the ear...must be 12 for those!) Our time together flew by too fast...plans for next year are already in the works!

To Steve

I remember standing in my driveway, when I was 3 years old, and watching as a new family moved in 4 doors down...they had a little boy...a playmate...who turned out to be a wonderful, life-long friend. Steve passed away on July 1, 2009. The first of our "group" of friends who grew up together, went through all of elementary school, junior high and high school together. I am including a photo (fuzzy old black and white of Steve and me on my driveway...a photo from jr. high (maybe you can see his broken tooth-he knocked it out on my hard head during a game of ghost in his basement...he never let me forget my role in his pain!)...and a photo from our senior year when I was Track Queen and Steve was my escort. Steve was the happiest guy I've ever known...always finding the humor in situations...he had a way with words, was so very smart, graduated from Duke University, and we were planning to get together in September when I will be in Berea. I am so sad. I am also so grateful for memories, which have flooded back into my mind: Saturday mornings at his house watching The Lone Ranger on TV; having him read me the poem, "I Had But 50 Cents" from The Best Loved Poems of the American People...we just loved that crazy poem! building forts out of his building blocks, apportioned exactly equally, so we could each build our own fort for our plastic cowboys and Indians; Steve playing the ACCORDIAN(!); writing the funniest entry in my high school yearbook EVERY YEAR!; Steve and Trip Davis bouncing the basketball all the way down Baker Street between their 2 houses and past mine, so they could play basketball with their self-made team, The Continentals...they were inspired by Ohio State's glory days of John Havlicek and Jerry Lucas. Still playing basketball at Fairwood, while the girls played tennis on the adjoining tennis courts, every summer through junior high and high school. We grew up, moved on, but remained forever friends. I am so glad we got together one more time at our 40th class reunion. I will miss him.
Sorry...the scans wouldn't (I COULDN'T) resize, and for some reason the photo of the broken tooth kept failing to post...