Getting control of my life--Long post

Those who know me well know that I have been frazzled lately. The past two weekends we have visited our grandchildren (which of course meant we got to visit our children as well). This has been a stress relieving experience. The level of love extended to us was unbelievable. Our grandchildren just wanted to be with us, nothing special, just time with us. We were going to do something grand with the grandchildren like go fishing, or take them to the zoo or go shopping, all they wanted to do was spend time with us.

First, we went to see the southern California families. The tradition with those families is to take the grandchildren to a hotel, give them the remote control, order room service and let them jump on the beds until they fall asleep with exhaustion. Everyone has grown past the bed jumping phase and now we only have pillow fights. They wanted to spend their time with us in the hotel. We bought some board games and played all afternoon then went to Chucky Cheese. While we were there one of the machines ran out of tickets so we called for help. When the boys came to help cute little Kylee they filled the machine with tickets and set it to automatically feed. It started spitting out tickets and she got over 200 tickets. She was jumping up and down and throwing tickets in the air and wrapping them around her neck like a scarf, it was adorable. She split them with her cousins. Dau, who is 12, learned long ago that the prizes are cheap and just fall apart, so he was not really interested in prizes, but loved the food and games. Lee and Kylee each got things they loved, rings, bracelets, balls, games, candy. It was great fun.

This video is three of the four of them playing Piranha. Lee eats Kylee's fish and everyone laughs, even Kylee, just not in this video.

Next, we visited our Northern California grandchildren and I took a bazillion pictures with my phone camera. The only clear picture I got was of my knee. While there we were able to discuss business matters that have been pressing on us and get a whole new outlook on the approach we want to take with our new business. We had dinner at the peer and took a little time to watch some soccor. Here are some out of focus pictures of a fun time. (Oh, yes, Brian has a swimming pool inside his house, so there was a swimming party while we were there.)

Sasha and Nami getting awards. They tied for the championship.

Tristan after his game, they won the championship game.

All three Northerners

Now, see what I mean, I have got to perfect this self-portrait thing, my daughter-in-law is adorable, and just look at how lame this picture is.

The swimming party. There were lots more children than this picture expresses.

And finally, Tarzan and Brian deep in political discussion as we walk along the peer listening to the sea otters bark.

We returned home to the joy of a visit from our Texas grandchildren at our home. They visited for 2 days and I forgot to take any pictures, but based on what you see above, it's not much of a loss. Harris and Tarzan spent quite a bit of time together and in particular, Harris got to ride in the trailer as Tarzan pulled him down the hill to lock the gate. He was thrilled and said that was one of the best days ever. Maddison and Amber are so grown up, it is fun to be with them. We had a great time, they are fun people.

So, to end this long post, we are relaxed and enjoying our new venture with no stress added to our lives. Brian was very helpful in putting things in perspective for us and gave us some fantastic advice. Thanks son.