Wednesday, August 16, 2006



A Week at Gram and Gramp Camp...

We had so many things we wanted to do, a l-o-n-g list and great plans. But mostly what Baxter (8) and Katie (5) wanted to do was hang out picking blueberries, collecting eggs from the chickens, and playing many, many games of Blink, Uno, Skip-Bo, Labyrinth, cribbage and Chinese checkers. It all made for a wonderful week of memory making.

We started the week with a train trip to Boston and the aquarium with Baxter, while Katie got to go to Circus Smirkus here at home. In Boston we joined forces with the kids' other grandmother, Nancy, who led us to the very best pizza in the North End, with Baxter impressed as always at Nancy's mastery of Italian.

The IMAX movie, the aquarium, a stroll through Faneuil Hall, the much-considered purchase of a Blue Angels model airplane, and finally, supper on the train all rounded out a wonderful day. Arriving home to find Katie sitting on the front steps in her pajamas just bursting to tell us about her day was truly frosting on an already rich cake!

Gram and Gramp Camp, in its second year, has already begun to find a clear rhythym. There are ice cream sandwiches in the freezer and they can each have one a day, any time of the day, just ask. We go back-to-school shopping where they each pick an outfit completely of their own choosing. One of this year's projects was to count the coins in an old carboy we've been filling for the past few years. It was a huge pile of quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies and dollars as well as a number of foreign coins. And every day there is a quiet hour after lunch... guess whose idea this is!

There are "specials" after supper each night too. One night they wanted to play tag, another night we walked to a nearby playground, we watched a video one night, and had s'mores and sparklers out by the firepit the last night.

We read and cooked together, and they spent a lot of time loving our cat Sam and feeding the fish, Marco and Elizabeth. We went rockhounding where Baxter and Katie (wearing safety glasses) enthusiastically split rocks hoping to find tourmaline. And we had water balloon fights.

I had hoped we'd have time to find some monarch butterfly caterpillars, paint dowels for giant-sized pick-up-sticks, and... and...

We've already started a list for next year, ahhhh... great plans...

Mary