Skip to main content

Let's go to Grandma's!

One of the problems with writing a blog is that you never come up with your best ideas sitting at a keyboard. For example, I have written brilliant blog entries in the middle of the night, while I'm up with the baby, but you'll just have to take my word for it, since I forget all of them as soon as I go to sleep...

For example, I wrote several entertaining accounts of our trip to Florida to see my grandma, but you'll just have to settle for what I come up with while I'm awake. Grandma hadn't met Luke yet, so we decided to make the 4.5 hour flight in Michael's airplane to see her. I didn't know when I went to sleep the night before when we would be leaving, if we would be leaving after Eleanor's school, at noon, early in the morning... When we woke up Michael checked the weather and asked how soon we could leave. We didn't get out as soon as I hoped, but soon enough.

4.5 hours in a 6 seat airplane is long. I remember when we first got the airplane when Eleanor was almost 2---the cabin felt roomy, she had plenty of space to roam around, make tents, have a blast. When you get 3 kids, 2 car seats, one booster, and all our gear back there, it is quite a bit more crowded. I am not complaning, since alternatives would be flying commercially or driving, but it seems like a long trip. The flight was exciting as far as weather, but we managed to avoid the storms thanks to satellite weather and very helpful controllers. It was less bumpy than many other trips which have had much less exciting weather, in fact.

I think Eleanor and Amanda's main goal was to go swimming in the swimming pool just down the street as many times as possible. The fact that we were a few miles from the beach didn't impress them, what impressed them was that we could walk to the pool! Luke was happy when we let him roll around on the floor---he actually crawled for the first time there (kids always learn more when you go to visit family).
Grandma kept asking me what she could do to help. She's 81, just had major surgery about 6 weeks ago, and isn't yet up to walking very far, but she has played a lot of golf and was in the paper for placing second (this is according to her friends at church, she wouldn't have told me herself). I kept telling her that all she needed to do was exist, and hold a baby if she felt like it.

We went to the Jungle Gardens, Eleanor got to hold an alligator (well, a little one, and she will tell you that it's mouth was taped shut), Amanda took off her shoes all day, we all melted a little in the heat. We went to church with my grandma, it was rally day (beginning of fall Sunday School) and so Eleanor and Amanda stayed for Sunday School (Eleanor was excited because it included ice cream!) while Grandma and I went home to get Luke a nap. The trip home the next day was uneventful (but still long =).

Overall, it was a good trip, not something I'd like to do every week, but definitely worth taking.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why you should study the history of math

  Why you should study the history of math In the mid 1300s a fad made its way around Italy. Mathematicians would challenge each other to “mathematical duels”. They would post problems for their opponents to solve, sometimes along with their solutions in coded poetry. The winners would get support and funding from rich patrons, the losers would descend into obscurity. One such contest, between Fiore and Tartaglia, involved a new method for solving the cubic. In order to win, Tartaglia worked day and night to find Fiore’s method---unfortunately, Fiore did not do the same and only knew his own method and no others. (*Recall that the formula for solutions to quadratic equations of the form use the quadratic formula, Giorlamo Cardano---physician, philosopher, astrologer and mathematician---convinced Tartaglia to share his method and promised never to reveal it. Then Cardano figured out a more general method, and wanted to share it, but was blocked by his promises. Fortunately (for Ca...

Books I like: reality edition

Here are some more books from my childhood and later. I read a lot as a kid, and these books are the ones that stand out in my memory. I figure that if I can remember them 25 years after I read them, they must be pretty good. I'm calling this the "Reality Segment," not fantasy, not science fiction, not history, just real life. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin : This is probably my favorite children's book of all time. I read it in 3rd grade or so, then read it again to clear it up more. Then I read it in 6 th grade and finally understood what was going on during the second reading of the will. In more recent readings I've understood more about Sydelle Paulaski and the relationship between Dr. Denton and the lovely Angela. What a pleasure. Ellen Raskin has written many other good children's books (all quirky and surprising) but this is the jewel. Bruno and Boots books by Gordon Korman : As the FNDP (Friendly Neighborhood Developmental Psychologis...

Books I like: magic/science fiction

I read a lot of science fiction and fantasy when I was younger, so I was surprised when I was thinking about this list at how few books were on it. The other thing that is interesting is how many books I just remember a few details from, but not anything useful like a title or author. Half Magic and the whole series, by Edward Eager: My favorite is Knight's Castle, although I suspect I would have enjoyed it more if I had ever read Ivanhoe... Mrs. Piggle Wiggle by Betty MacDonald: I'm not sure when it happened, but I now identify with the parents rather than the kids. The Seven Citadels by Geraldine Harris: I came back to the Jr. High library to check this out even after I moved on to the high school. Girl with the Silver Eyes by Wilo Davis Roberts: I always wondered what would happen if I had ESP and other "special" abilities. The OZ books, by L. Frank Baum: I read almost all of these (all the ones I could find in the library, rather). My favorite is Tik - To...