Date Night!

Sun and sea have been the name of the game since we woke up on Monday morning.   We have made it to the beach each day and sometimes twice a day.  My favorite time to hit the beach is  in the afternoon.  The sun is not nearly as hot, and it is low tide so that there are tidepools that have been so much fun to play in.

 The smallest granddaughter has gone from not wanting to place her feet in the sand or sea, to hopping from the tidepools to the surf just as fast as her little legs can carry her!  She keeps at least one adult running that is for sure!

Another great memory for me will be my 5 year old grandson taking a break from boogie boarding to catch a drink out of his sippy cup!  He is trying to stand on the boogie board, just like he has seen his dad stand on the surf board.  He told me that his dad made that up!

We take turns cooking each night of the week, but Friday night is almost always date night.  Tom and I watch the grandkids while the parents go out to eat.  We fed the 4 grandkids, the three P's.
Pizza, popcicles, and popcorn.  We watched "Finding Nemo", in honor of our being at the beach.  (We hid our heads under our blankets, at the scary parts.)  When the movie was over it was time to brush teeth, read books and tuck everyone into bed and sing songs til they fell asleep.

The grownup kids made the mistake of coming in, laughing, before the kids were asleep so we didn't really have to finish that up.  We handed the snuggle duties over to their parents, and soon we making our way across the street to our own beds.

It has been one fabulous day after another, we still have one more!
Until next time, Happy Weaving, Tina

Summer!

There is something about this time of year that precludes my regular fiber like activities, weaving and spinning and knitting. (already a vast field!)  It can take several forms, like putting the garden in, or traveling to see family, or fun fridays for the kids at church, or new goats being born and needing that extra watchful eye that the adults don't need.  It can also take the form of what I like to call tangents like that tatted cap I posted about last week, on Farmstead Studio.  It is too hot to knit, you know and the tatting just slips right in my purse!  No extra bag to carry!

This week however there has been a new bud on the rose bush.  Some friends of ours are up at the Elkmont Camping Ground, in the Smokey Mountains, for the week and they invited us to come up for the day on Wednesday.  It was a perfect day, we sat and chatted by the campfire, we took a walk, we ate a great campfire meal, and before you know it, we are hunting a tent to join them for a Saturday overnight!  I totally did not expect that!

My family camped all the time, husbands did not!  I had mentioned it a couple of times but it never went anywhere.  I have great memories of a western USA camping tour that ended up at the family reunion in Texas, and  Summers spent camping on the bluff above a beach in California with cousins.  If all goes well, I think I might be able to start building some new memories of camping with kids and grandkids in the Great Smokey Mountains.  It is about as far away from my house now as the beach was from my family home then.

Here are the local grandkids enjoying a "swimming lesson" with Papa.   Grandson is really progressing, taking breaths as he swims, and he loves to glide, and scare his mama half to death.  Granddaughter is trying hard on her freestyle form.  This is their version of a Super Huge Cannonball at the end of the lesson.

It has captured their personalities so perfectly!  I wish all the grandkids were local, though I might have to get in the water myself if they were, right now I am an extra pair of eyes!

Until next time, be a Happy Camper, Tina