Off To See Our Granddaughters, Hayden And Halle

7:15

Morning Blogging

We are both up before 6:00, excited because of our seven hour drive to Bristow, our nearest grandchildren now.  We hope to be on the road by 8:00 at at the latest, getting us to Bristow just before 3:00 when the girls get home from school.  It sounds like a busy weekend, with a cross country meet, a Homecoming dance, and a birthday party on Sunday.

Yesterday began with breakfast with two of the five guys, the others busy or out of town.  It's a popular place, and there's not a morning that we don't run into a few people I know, though Joe and Dick seem to know just about everyone, the virtue of having lived here a good part of their lives.  We stay an hour, always order an unhealthy breakfast, and leave just about 9:00, a good way to start the day.

When I got home, we worked on getting the house in order, so that it would be welcoming when we arrive back home on Monday evening.  And though we will only be gone for three nights, the decision as to what to bring is always a problem, less so as the weather will be in the 60's, with no rain or snow.  Around 11:00, I went and picked up three buckets of  top soil from our neighbors, the Fox's, yard.  They no longer need it and told us to come and get it if we can use it.  So I did and I now have plenty for when we put in a new tree on Tuesday morning.  While I did this, Evie made me a lunch of avocado and cheese quesadillas and heated up some soup.

After lunch, we both packed for our trip, and I went back and picked up another load of topsoil, spreading it on our bare spots, ready for seeding either this year or next spring.  We took it easy until about 4:30, when we both went outside and cut the lawns, trying to beat the rain.  A few drops hit us as we ended, but we managed to get them done by 5:00 and, of course, it stopped drizzling as we finished.  Early in the day, Evie had put together the dough for chocolate chip cookies, so she spent an hour baking them for Jill, Drew and the girls and me.  We managed to get a glass of wine in between the cookies and it was miserable outside, heavy winds, leaves falling, and rain.  Actually, we like it, especially when we are warm and cosy inside.

Neither of us felt like fussing with dinner, so we had breakfast, always a good, easy meal, of home fries, bacon, eggs and toast. We finally started to watch a British series from 2013 called Orphan Black, a bit difficult to understand at first but after a couple of episodes, we began to catch on.  I like it more than Evie.  I hope we stick with it.  I am reading an interesting book set during the Reagan years, peopled by all the players of that period called FINALE by Thomas Mellon.  It begins with Nixon watching the Republican Convention in 1976, complaining about Ford and Dole, the Republican candidates and ridiculing Ronald Reagan's failure to win the nomination, laughing at Thather's comment upon meeing Reaga  ('There's nothing between his ears') and calling his wife, Nancy, "a witch." Vintage nasty and tricky Dick.  I think I am going to like this novel.