Stories to tell

 I am finally back to civilization and have internet access whenever I want it.  That means I am not getting anything done again!  But, I have stories to tell from my week's adventure and time to document the trip.  Let's start from the beginning and tell them through the end shall we?  Here's my sister's kids, the oldest just graduated high school and will be heading off to college in the fall.  He wants to do something with outdoor studies and got his Eagle Scout award.  He (and his siblings) are looking forward to his flight from the nest and they had a college orientation the same time my mom had her surgery.

 This one is my sister's youngest and he just hit the age where he can eat an entire horse and still be hungry.  I'm sure my sister will appreciate having one less mouth to feed when the grocery bill comes each week. :)

 Keeping with the theme of taking a sip when you get your picture taken the middle child is the perfect child :) (I'm the middle child too!) and she is taking all honors classes and wants to be a teacher or art therapist when she is done with school.  She must admire me or something.  I tried talking her out of it, but kids these days have a mind of their own.  She is smart in thinking you get summers off.  She will be taking over my job of making sure my mom does her physical therapy exercises now that I'm home.  My mom has lots of excuses why she can't get them done and having someone to check in on her every day makes sure those excuses are just that.  The more she does them, the faster she will get better and be back to driving my dad around.

 Speaking of my dad, we had a great time together getting each other in trouble.  When my mom was in the hospital after her surgery, we went out to dinner together and he decided he was just going to have pie.  My mom would never let him have just a piece of pie for dinner so I decided I would just have some pie too.  We both decided not to tell mom that we were being bad.  We came home later and had a real dinner around 8pm.  But, 'don't tell mom' became the theme of the week.  He kept trying to get away with all sorts of things that she would never let him do.  They are a funny couple.  She's always getting after him and keeping him on his toes and I think he likes the attention, pretending to forget things just so she will remind him.  "oh, come on now" was said often by her.

 Here's my mom and much older sister. :) (She's 16 months older than me)  This was my mom's final dinner before her surgery and we went to a restaurant called Cheddar's.  We don't have that out in California and they had good food and a nice ambiance.  We stuck my dad out on the end at the head of the table.  They kept bringing refills on the drinks and the kids practically swam out of there.  The portions were huge and almost everyone brought home leftovers.

Not to be left out, I'm getting good at selfies.  It was good to be back with family and to be spoiled.  My family goes out to eat about once a year.  We went out for every meal except breakfast.  And breakfast had fresh fruit.  I started thinking it was a good thing I didn't take any of my kids with me.  They would have seen what the good life looked like and not wanted to come home.  They would have seen beautiful weather, good food, nice company, and maybe decided they were family people after all.