Departure Day
Yesterday was Departure Day for our eleven day visit with our daughter, son-in-law and three grandkids. That is the most time we have ever spent under their roof, which to some may not seem like a big deal, but for my wife, Muri, and I it was. We are a strong-willed bunch, from the the oldest (that would be moi) to the youngest (that would be sweet but strong-willed Savy girl). Muri and I have always needed alone time (that would be quiet alone time) even from each other, a need that seems to get greater as we age. That is hard to come by in a house with three beautiful, rambunctious and chatty children, not to mention their chatty mother. And we all know how seniors love their routines, don’t we? And how they get grouchy when their routines are interrupted or unavailable. So, in spite of how anxious we were to see those grandkids, we approached the week with some trepidation. Did my daughter and son-in-law felt the same way? You’ll have to ask them.
I am happy to report that our time there went perfectly … or at least as close to perfectly as is possible in this universe. Each of the kids had an activity we could attend. Savy’s cheer team had a national competition on Friday … it would have been enough just to see her perform but they took first place. A special treat was to see how proud her brothers were of her. We attended Maddux’s ninth birthday swim party at the local rec center and on Sunday we celebrated again with the in-laws. Monday morning, we woke up to this.
Because the kids were in school Monday through Thursday (and our daughter, Amy, works at their school), we had the house to ourselves in the morning … that all important alone time, you know … and Tuesday night, Amy let us borrow the car for a date (if we promised not to stay out too late or make out in the driveway). It kept the old folks sane. Wednesday, we went to see the box city Reed’s class built, along with cities by the other fifth grade classes. Seeing the kid’s school and meeting their teachers makes us feel more like part of their lives.
Friday and Saturday, the parents went to Park City, leaving us with the grandkids to ourselves. Any grandparent knows that grandkids are more fun when their parents aren’t around. We went to a new park in nearby Riverton then Muri took Reed and Savy to the movies while I took Maddux to Scheel’s, a spectacular sporting goods store. In between, we had a great visit with the parents.
Then there’s Departure Day, which is always a potential minefield. On Departure Day, Amy is ready to get back to her routine and Muri has always been an anxious traveler. Savy is already sad that we are leaving and the boys are … well, the boys … playing grab-ass and getting in trouble with Mom and Nana. On Departure Day, Older Eyes holds things together because he is bound and determined to drag every last minute out of his grandkid fix. We decided to take the kids for lunch and bowling so Amy could get some work done around the house. Watching little kids try to hurl a 6 or 7 pound ball down an alley is a kick. Unfortunately Older Eyes decided to roll one string and couldn’t break a hundred. Talk about feeling older (that’s the not quite perfect part).
Now we’re home and I’m missing them already. And today was a simply gorgeous Socal day.
I’m a lucky man.
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Older Eyes 
March 30, 2016 at 12:24 am
I do know that missing the grandkids way too well! Younger daughter, Mandy and her two houligans were to come Easter Saturday -after the kids had made it to the Easter Egg Hunt at their church But some car problems made that idea bust. So she suggested I come down to their place and knowing my older grandson -who generally comes up to spend his weekends here with me -was off work all this past weekend, I asked him if he’d like to travel down to Aunt Mandy’s with me and he agreed with that plan. Not knowing for a few days exactly where we were going to be, I decided to pick up a nice size turkey for Easter Dinner as if they were able to come here, it would work and if Alex and I went there, I could take my big electric roaster down with us and cook it there with the added bonus being both kids will eat turkey! Plans were activated that Alex and I were going to Middletown Saturday morning until Alex showed up here Friday night with news that made this trip go bust too! One of his co-workers at the farm where he works mornings (from 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. milking about 200 cows) was in an accident and had his leg broken so that put the farmer down a needed milker and none of the other guys could work that weekend so Alex agreed to give up his family holiday plans and take over the injured guy’s weekend shift. See how fast good plans (made by mice and men, ya know) can go down the drain?
So that left me alone for the weekend with a 14 pound turkey all thawed out and needing to be cooked as I didn’t have near enough room in the freezer for anything else to be shoved in there. The thought of my having that much turkey in my refrigerator all cooked up wasn’t appealing to me at all but things turned around yet again as my son and his fiance invited me to go to Easter Dinner with them and her little girl at her parents home. Since her mom was cooking a ham and serving buffet style with a bunch of other foods, I carved up the cooked turkey, filling two big tupperware containers -one with white, the other with dark meat and took it out, along with two loaves of freshly baked Swedish Limpa Rye bread to make my contribution to the dinner. It was a nice get-together and I got to meet the son’s fiance’s grandmother who will be 90 years old on April 7th! Came home with about 2/3 of one container with nothing but white meat in it -which happens to be my favorite -and I’ve been feasting on cold turkey and tomato sandwiches here now for the past two days! As nice as this all was, I still missed not being around my two younger grandkids as well as my older grandson and wished I could have gone down to spend those two days with them, ya know. But they will be up probably in two weeks from now so we can celebrate Kurt’s 10th birthday and that will compensate for missing out on being with my daughter and her kids and Alex for the Easter weekend. Didn’t mean to write a post here, but then too, you should be accustomed to my wordy comments after as many years now that we have been communicating! Good to hear you and Muri had a great vacation with you daughter and her family as I do know how much you like doing that!
March 30, 2016 at 4:56 am
You sure are. Glad you had such a fabulous time.