There's Something Squirrelly About The Tomatoes

Every morning I can watch this little guy running up and down the tree in front of my bedroom window. 

He seems to be looking for something, but I never see him find it.

I can totally relate to Mr. Squirrelly.  I'm doing the same thing in my tomato patch.  Usually I start finding ripe tomatoes around July 4th.  This year I'm running back and forth through the tomatoes and all I'm seeing are huge, lush, green tomato plants,

covered with nothing but green tomatoes.  

Thanks to the cool summer, wet weather, and hailstorm damage, the garden is really behind this year.

\

Until today!  This morning I found my first red tomatoes. 

Yeah!

Let the salsa season begin!

Unfortunately, lots of my tomatoes are going to look like this:

 and I've yet to see even one squash. Not even a zucchini.

That hailstorm left some permanent bruises. 

 I hope Squirrelly's acorns are going to do a little better so that he can relax a bit....

Now you know

Hailey was taking a little break when she noticed an ant crawling around the bathroom floor. 

 Hailey: "Makayla, get the ant!!"

Makayla tried.  She swooshed it with her hands.

and stomped on it with her feet.

Me, encouragingly: "Get him, Makayla!"

Hailey:  "No Grandma, that's not a him! It's a girl!"

Me: "How do you know?"

Hailey, patronizingly: "Ants are GIRLS.  UNCLES are boys!"

Now you know!

Continuing important traditions.

Why are we so excited?

We found a box of Lucky Charms in the cereal cabinet!

You may have been told Lucky Charms are junk food.  You obviously haven't been reading the box!  Lucky Charms makes you GROW UP STRONG

AND it has whole grain and calcium GUARANTEED!

It's probably full of  all kinds of healthy stuff. 
If I could find my glasses, I'd tell you how exactly what you're getting.

Of course, no self-respecting parent would ever give their children Lucky Charms.  We all know it's Grandma-only food.  In fact, certain parents had their children convinced Lucky Charms is ONLY available in Montana where Grandma resides.  Certainly it's not stocked in Ohio! 

I obliged by sending care packages that had Lucky Charms in them.

Some people have been known to eat them until they crash.

When we lived in Salt Lake City in 1980-81, Oma would give Scott and Shelly Apple Jacks when we visited.  For years they referred to Apple Jacks as "Oma's Cereal".  So you see, I'm just doing my part to continue the important tradition of feeding junk food to the next generation of grandchildren as a token of my love.

To all my grandkids:  You are welcome!

Bahamas! Part 6: What Megan was up to while Shelly was slaving and we were chillaxin

While snooping looking through Megan's camera, I found this cute picture of my daughters going to a BYU-I class together last week.  It made me wonder if Megan was behaving herself after leaving her chaperones behind. Let's scroll through her camera pictures and see what Meggie was up to when we were in the Bahamas:

She was at girl's camp!  What a perfect place for her to be while we're away.  Camp was in a beautiful spot near Bozeman. I'll bet as I scroll through her camera, there will be breath-taking scenery shots, appreciate-the-wonders-of-nature pictures, and wholesome-groups-of girls-photos.  After all, Megan is a second year "Lite"--one of those older girls who go to camp to set an example, help the adults, and make the Beehives feel excited about the Young Women program.

Oh yes!  This is just what I expected. Here's a picture with that nonmember girl visiting from France. 

She speaks a little English and is a lot of fun. 

And here is a snapshot of these three adorable, sweet, bff young women, freshly off the mountain hike.

and is this a picture of them meditating on their blessings?

Wait--no, they're showing the effects of falling into a blueberry bush!

I wonder how this fits into the medieval theme of this year's camp....?

oo--I guess this depicts how camp food compares with their mother's cooking...

...or maybe they just had too many s'mores?

This could be the picture from the snipe hunt, or maybe it's an example of the ravages of staying up till dawn for 5 days in a row.

What a depressing photograph!  All that time without cell phones, ipods, facebook, and boys!

Now HERE is a picture of some beautiful Montana campers!  Now we're getting to the GOOD pictures. 

WHAT? THE END?

Oh poor Megan! 

Someone must have erased all the best pictures of camp from her camera as a camp prank :{ 

At least these two serious, mature young ladies are going to EFY together in August.  I know we will get some good pictures from that!

Bahamas! Part 5: What Shelly was up to while we were chillaxing.

Doesn't this look like fun???  Six kids under the age of 6! Can you believe Shelly volunteered to watch them all for a whole WEEK?  Amy's girls were sleeping at our house since Amy's days were starting at 6 am this week and ending at 11 pm, so Shelly had extra joy putting ALL these little people to bed.

Look at that sweet little babysitter, Jordan, that helpful big sister, Kailyn, those ready-to-play boys, Chase and Caden (with a band-aid on his eye for unknown reasons),

those loving-all-the-attention girls, Makayla and Hailey. 

And look!  Shelly was still smiling at the end of the week!

Shelly, how can we ever thank you enough for giving us a much needed break?   Thank you for being such a thoughtful daughter.  And after listening to Hailey cry for a solid hour because you didn't take her to South Dakota with you, we will try to forgive you for leaving her behind.

I wonder what Shelly did with ALL her spare time this week, don't you?  I mean how much chaos can 6 kids create?  It only took me 1/2 an hour to sweep after the 6 kids had breakfast together.  I only managed to sweep a little, tiny, hardly noticable pile of stuff. And really, how often do little kids want to have something to eat anyway?  I bet Shelly had plenty of time to catch up on reading, surf the net, paint her toenails, watch soaps, eat chocolate bon bons.....

Well, maybe not. We love you, Shelly! Thanks for working so hard so we could play!

Next: Bahamas! Part 6: What Megan was up to while Shelly was slaving and we were chillaxing.

Bahamas! Part 4: The lonnggg journey home

When we docked in Miami on Friday,
we had several hours to explore the city before we needed to catch our plane. 

We just hadn't had enough of the ocean, so we took a Miami harbor tour on this lovely pirate barge to take a "see where the rich people live" boat ride.

We sailed past Elizabeth Taylor's tiny 13 bedroom cabin, recently purchased for $42 million. 

We continued on to Jennifer Lopez's little bungalow. She has two other in Miami, just in cause she gets bored with this one.

Years ago I had several daughters who were sure Will Smith was going to join the church and marry them.  I'm including this picture of the Smith's Miami bay home for benefit of my sons-in law: 

 If you see this house, quickly steer your wife away to prevent her from breaking and entering and embarrassing herself (and you).

Finally it was time to catch our plane and head home.  Unfortunately, after boarding we sat on the tarmac for 1 hour 45 minutes-no explanation.  We had a really tight schedule in Minneapolis, and by the time we got there our connecting flight was long gone.  After rebooking a flight for early Saturday morning, we managed to find a hotel.

Since 50% of Delta flights were delayed that day due to a computer problem, hotels were in short supply. We thought about rousing the DeLongs out of bed to pick us up, take us to their house, throw us a glass of milk, and take us back to the airport. We decided let them snooze when we managed to find the last room in a nearby Comfort Inn.  The bathroom was bigger then our entire bedroom/bathroom on the ship 

and the bedroom was bigger then the whole ship.  We fell into bed(s) at 12:30 am, got a couple of hours of sleep and ran back to the airport.  The terminal was full of disheveled, disgruntled customers who had been unable to find a hotel room.

As for Stan and I, our flight was completely full and we were forced to take a free upgrade to first class.  It was tough.  We were swimming in leg room, sinking into padded leather seats, drinking from real glass cups, and choosing from a variety of candy bars instead of those bags with three stale peanuts. Not only that, but our luggage was marked "priority" and was first off the plane in Billings.  In addition we each got $100 voucher to fly with Delta again.  Life is rough.

Next:  Bahamas! Part 5: What Shelly was up to while we were chillaxing

Bahamas! Part 3: Swimming like a fish and eating like a glutton

Our final docking spot was a private island called Stirrup Cay Island.  Did I mention how amazingly beautiful, colorful, and clean the water is in the Bahamas?  Not to mention the sand, which is incredibly white, soft, and clean.

We went snorkeling in this bay.  Stan laughed so hard when he saw me in my snorkel gear, I knew there could be no pictures.  I've never been snorkeling and just so you know, it takes tremendous concentration to do it right.  I swallowed so much water that the ocean level dropped at least a foot.  However, when I finally got the hang of it, it was an amazing experience.  There were so many fish and plants to see---just like in the films you used to watch at school. We saw at least a dozen different kinds of very colorful fish and lots of interesting plants.  After snorkeling for about an hour, I was so sick from all the saltwater in my system, I had to go ashore.

The obvious cure for an upset stomach is to eat lots of food.  So I did.  The food on this cruise was incredible!

We had six dining rooms to choose from, or we could eat at the buffet.  We could eat at any time of the day or night, and usually could get a seat by the window.

Our favorite appetizers were sweet potato bisque, the shrimp cocktail pictured here,

and a sausage doo-hicky thing.

Our favorite main dishes were the lobster tail and the fish hot bowl.

Our favorite desserts were coconut souffle with mango sauce and German chocolate cake.

They also had free soft-serve ice cream, which as my children know,

 I have a slight self-control problem with. 

Sadly, the serving size was appropriate only for a gnome. 

The correct serving size for this item is approximately 93.7 times bigger.

Next:  Part 4: The lonnnnggg journey home.