Gramma Mimi Summer Camp 2024: Not My First Rodeo

She had them lay on the ground - and caught this with no direction. 

Sixteen years ago, when my oldest grandson was born several states away, I formulated a plan to spirit him away for a week each summer.  I would call it Gramma Camp and even found a onesie for him to wear when he came to visit at seven months old. 

I did not take into account that I was the parent of five children and once they start multiplying, that is a lot of grandchildren. I was fortunate to end up with ten. 

Pretty Scary Varmits! 

When they were young, and there were fewer of them, I worked full time for a agricultural supply company. I would pick a theme, plan for months and have a week of fun filled activities.  

Then I retired and provide full or part-time child care to seven of them. Someone did not think ahead.  They still love "cousin camp".  For the past two years I copped out to passes to a nearby amusement park and "planned" from there.  This year I decided I needed a theme. But the brain was dry. Then I remembered that several were not even born when I had the first few camps. I recycled my "Cowboy Camp" theme into my new "Not My First Rodeo. Theme". I would love to thrill you with a list of themed meals, crafts and activities from the past few days, but I am so tired that I can only do photos at this point. 

This was the gang before they were captured by the posse.
 

I was very blessed when my family photographer posted she had a cancellation for a session on the second morning of camp and would someone like to book a session? Me! Me!  The younger seven are still willing to let me dress them up and play dolls - so here we are. Aren't most grammas ready for a themed photo shoot for seven children with 8 hours notice? My three teen grandchildren joined us that afternoon - LOL - by choice. 

We made it at sunrise - and the photos are lovely!  Hopefully I will recover soon and can post and share about the water games, the outings, a darling farm I found, horse back riding, the buffalo we met, lunch from the chuck wagon.  Maybe I will recover soon, LOL.   

Yee Haw!  (she was ready for rain with this set up. And thank you to Children's Place for putting these shirts on sale. 

THE PORCH

Thank you all for the kind compliments on my front porch in my last post.  I thought I would share it's story since it is something we are pretty proud of around here. Be prepared for a long post with lots of memories and photos. 

We purchased our tiny box house in 1979 when we were nineteen and this is the front of the house in spring of 1980. I was so skinny back then that this is me seven months pregnant. We have a neighborhood facebook page and all the "new" people are aghast that there are no trees, bushes or much of anything on the street when they see this photo. It was pretty barren. 

I need to apologize for the poor quality of a lot of these camera photos. 

We ended up with five children in seven years and couldn't afford to leave our "starter" home.  Finally the time came when we had to decide if we were going to stay here forever and make it our dream home or move. And my dream home had a front porch.  

First, zoning required a full foundation under our new porch and new 500 sq foot family room.  My contractors (husband and sons) applied for a permit and stated digging. 

This is what greeted me every night when I got home from work.  People thought we were tearing the house down. 

And here is when I began to wonder if we had made a big, expensive mistake. 

Looking better. 

Obviously I could not wait to put furniture on this porch.  The odd perspective is off because I am taking pictures of pictures in a photo album. To the right is my old lilac bush. I had it dug out and replanted. And then there were ground bees underneath and we ended up killing it with chemicals. . . 

We had spaced the posts to accommodate the matching rails. The rails were discontinued by the time we were able to purchase them. We ended up having to have custom rails. Of course. 

Worth every penny. 

Today! It took a few years for the plants to take off. Everything is a perennial and comes back (except my hanging baskets.) 

Here is the side of the house as originally constructed.

The zoning inspector did not care to inspect the electric or anything, but had a fit that we had a cement block in front of the door temporarily. My husband quickly constructed what is still know as "Mom's Personal Deck". 

Here is that side of the house today. I know the lilacs look like they are begging for water (it rained this afternoon). And the trellis seems a little lonely since Mr Merry seems to have "trimmed" my roses to the ground. 

Two years ago we planted a row of Rose O Sharon volunteers to fill in a hedge to match what is closer to the road. 

And we have some hidden gardens. The striped seat at the end is my seat on the porch and this garden is just over the rail. 

By the front yard bicycle, the fairies have developed more property. 

My porch is the porch of my dreams. The porch I always wanted. We waited a long time, saved a long time and I was smart enough, back when I was a teenager, to marry someone who would and could build it for me. 

I always say that, if I win the lottery, I will build a porch on every house on my street! 

It seems like yesterday, but we built the porch (and addition) the year our youngest graduated from high school. Somehow that was twenty years ago. It seems like yesterday! 

My Lilies

My favorite part of my home is my daylilies. And this is the week they are blooming! I'm sorry for the shadows in the photos. We just put family on an airplane after a week of activity, I was sitting in the church office all day and Mr Merry has some tests scheduled for tomorrow. But I popped out of my car this afternoon and shot these pictures so I could share them. 

The light wasn't right to really showcase the brightness of the orange color of the blossoms. 

Here is the second bed on the far left of the above photo. 

That's my car with the groovy flowers on the side. 

The view from the porch rail. 

That is my garden angel Pearl May on the left and my bicycle planter on the right. The flowers in the basket are yellow and purple, but again, the lighting. 

And my front door. When I saw this wreath at Aldi last year, I knew it had my name on it!  

School's Out

All ten grandchildren are on summer break! Last week I attended an award ceremony for my twin-kies. They both received honors for scholastics and attendance and my granddaughter received the top student award! I had to leave home at 6:15 am to get to the school by 8:30. I drank two large coffees on the way. (and one of the reasons it takes that long to get there is stopping for restrooms, too). Then I went out for coffee with their mother and other grandparents.  Then I stopped at a Tim Hortons on the way home for another coffee. I got back home at 2:30 pm.  Yes. I vibrated the rest of the day. 

Three of my grandchildren who attended one school district finished the same day as their teacher mom in a different school district. I didn't see that one coming. Usually they are here a week! We did have two from another school district here last week while mom finished her teacher days. 

And today was the first day of summer break for the last two. They start sports camps tomorrow so the car pools begin. They are of a useful age, one helped grampa mow the lawn today. 

Last week was crazy. An extended family member had a health crisis and after a few days in two hospitals they figured it out. What was diagnosed as pneumonia after a hip replacement is actually cancer and she is getting a battle plan. 

I also have extended family coming this Friday and staying through Tuesday. Since we live in a small town, it has been a mental stretch coming up with entertainment ideas. I did rope my adult children into hosting dinners at their houses for a change of scenery. So I am thinking I need to go to bed early tonight so I can spend 48 hours scrubbing my house. 

Today I registered children for summer reading. There was a two hour window for which you could get a coupon for a free cotton candy from the cotton candy lady. Four hundred and fifty children and adults registered for summer reading. Would you like to guess what that experience was like? I did ask the grandchildren if next year we could register them late and I would just buy them all some cotton candy! 

I hope everyone is having a good start to summer! My lettuce is growing like crazy and we have already had two tomatoes. The first bite of those real tomatoes is one of my favorite parts of summer. 

Now I have a funny part to share.  This is my "influencer" "promotional" moment.  

I am not a professional make up artist. Since I retired my philosophy on my personal appearance is that, since I can't see what I look like, what do I care? My make up routine is normally - wash my face.  I do have one fatal flaw.  I was a natural blonde in my younger days and still have invisible lashes and eyebrows. The older I get, the less it looks like I have eyes. 

So, when I am preparing to face the world, and have the world face me, I add mascara to make it easier to see where my eyes are.  I so rarely want to face the world, I rarely need to replenish my mascara supply. Inevitably the product I use has been discontinued or the packaging has changed so I can't locate it.  This happened recently. 

I ordered a mascara from Amazon that said it was something special. I applied it and I can't see a difference.  A blogger I follow suggested a new mascara she found and I looked it up. It was $48 a tube. 

So I went to Amazon and ordered this mascara for $4.49. 

This worked wonderfully!  I am sorry to inflect this photo on the masses, but as you can see - I have eye lashes on one eye where it has been applied. Disclaimer - I receive nothing from this review. It was my own idea in case anyone else has need of a new mascara and spends as much on make up as I do. 

Please disregard the wrinkles and crow's feet. I am not wearing my large framed glasses to help cover them. (another make up trick)