Saturday, October 30, 2010

And she's off...

Well...it's actually been a week.

Tuesday before last, Grandma's dear friends Gigi and Baba (names changed cuz it's how I roll) pulled up in their 5th Wheel to sweep Grandma back to Arizona. Thankfully they didn't sweep her RIGHT away, or there would have been far more tears.

They stayed in the area until Saturday morning. We did a few things with them of which there were no pictures. They play the most interesting game of Yahtzee ever.

But on Friday night, we decided to have a fakey little Thanksgiving Dinner. Just your basic rotisserri chicken with the fixings that we LIKE to make, like cranberry sauce and mashed taters and soooped up stove-top-ish stuffing...and salad, cuz I didn't feel like any actual-prep-needed veggies...and sparkling cider. We pulled out the pretty glassware and the pretty-but-plastic everyday...ehem "china"...and the same old, mismatched, nicked cutlery we use everyday and had a real meal with these people that we've grown to love so much and adopted as another set of grandparents.

It was great. Really REALLY great.

And then Miss Baba pulled out one of her passions to share with the girls.

Miss Baba is a rock person...rock collector...rock cutter...rock placer-into-pretty-settings-and-make-actual-jewelry-out-of-something-that-used-to-be-just-a-rock person...And she had a lot to show us. Sadly, she hadn't brought any of the finished jewelry. It was already packed to go...we'd gotten to see it earlier in the day back at the RV...but no pictures. Sad.

She started with just Beanie and Bear...


But it wasn't a terribly long time before she'd sucked us ALL in...


We sorted and wetted SO many stones. You wet the cut stone to see how it will looked when it's polished. And I, for one played with them...looked at the light shining through them...


Lined up Bubba's head so it looked like I was about to SQUISH it as I was admiring the rock...in the second one the boys actually KNOW what I'm doing...hence the laugh...


HA! Mr. Gigi, I SQUISH your head!


This is my favorite one...I love that color blue...A.LOT. It is also nearly the color of my daughter's bedroom ceiling which I also love A. LOT. You know, she still won't let me move all my stuff into and take over her room so that I can look at it all the time. (sigh)


We had quite a good time with that. But there was another very important person involved in this visit. Well, not exactly a person...but loved...VERY loved.

This is Barley...isn't he sweet...


Well you can't tell from pictures, but he is sweet. One of the sweetest dogs EVER. And Monkey Face LOVED him...and that's saying something as dogs aren't always her thing...


We tried really hard to get a shot of all the girls with Barley to show to Uncle BakerMan, who also loves him...but Barley wasn't playing with us. He's a little old and a little sore and he just wanted to EAT or SLEEP...So Miss Baba fed him while the girls cheesed it up...


And in the end...Barley didn't want to go. He found our kitchen floor MUCH to his liking and Bubba had to lure him out with the promise of mashed potatoes...


And the next morning we dropped Grandma off and followed along beside them for a ways as they set out...


So Grandma is back in Arizona now for awhile. We expect her back some time in December for Christmas fun.

As I was putting this together, I really wanted a picture of Grandma and the girls as the closing shot. All I could find was this one...well, it's actually a set...and it would have been taken last Thursday night...but...teee heee...look at how silly it is. We call Beanie "strange-alien-child" when we see her dressed like this and I'm positive that were she another year older she wouldn't want me taking ANY pictures in this state. But as I inadvertently managed to get a whole series, I'm taking this one opportunity!! WOOOO HOOO!!! So this is for the Grandma and her goofy girls...



Look while you can, because I'm certain that when she's 13 she'll make me take it down.

See ya around...

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