Making Up For Lost Time

Whew. It's been almost a week since I last posted. It was a whirlwind week.

My parents were visiting from West Texas for a week, and left this morning. We had a lot of lost time to make up. We only see each other a few times a year. And with the girls as young as they are, 6 months between visits is a lot of time passed. That results in a different child at each visit. So there's a lot to do. There's a lot of "Pawpaw Monster" game to squeeze into every day.

The girls call my parents Pawpaw and Nana. The Pawpaw Monster game involves a lot of roaring, squealing, running, roughhousing, and bouncing on the bed. It's exhausting for everyone but the girls. They just can't get enough. I'm surprised my Dad still has a voice after all of the roaring he did this week... The girls were pretty nonchalant this morning when my parents went to the bus stop to head to the airport. They were perfectly content to resume our regular Monday schedule. But this evening after dinner, when they couldn't play Pawpaw Monster, and Nana wasn't available to read stories, the tears started to flow. You can't blame them. We need more Nana and Pawpaw in our lives.

But we made the most of our week. We went camping. We took my parents to Nickerson State Park on the Cape to introduce them to camping without 100+ degree heat, snakes, scorpions, or clouds of bugs. The weather was mild, sunny, and relatively bug-free. Well, after the first day of non-stop deluge, that is... When we first got there, God had turned on the spigot, and the rain was tropical in nature - falling hard and steadily. For hours. We looked at the radar on our iPhones, determined that the rain wasn't stopping soon, and went to go grocery shopping and find some dinner, where I had the best fried scallops of my life. We did get a good chance to see where the rivers flowed through the campsite when it rained. That's always a good thing. The rain did stop long enough to let us set up camp before nightfall. Which was also good. We were pitching our new ginormo-tent for the first time. It sleeps 6, and has an attached garage. Yes, a garage. The dogs' kennels fit well in there, as was a good weather-proof place to store just about everything else. Thankfully, the first day was the only rain we saw. The girls were in heaven. The park had a playground, and we had our own private swimming beach right off our site. Which was also very good. Our attempts at sightseeing around the Cape were thwarted by lack of parking. Even after Labor Day. It reminded us why we don't make it to the Cape often...

This tent is ginormous.

Our campsite was right on a pond, with our own private beach!

After our Cape camping adventure, we took the family apple-picking. And peach-picking. It was a gloriously beautiful day. We got a bushel of apples, both Honeycrisp and Cortlands. Then we picked peaches, because we just couldn't help ourselves. The girls had a blast. My parents got to check something off their wish list. We made applesauce. Four batches, so far... Yum...

Apples!

Peaches!

The next day, we went to church. And BestestHusband and my Dad smoked a brisket. We had Ally, Brian's second-cousin and our closest family member, over for dinner. We made fresh peach daiquiris, and ate out on the patio. Yum. 

It was a great week. We had a lot to do this week, and did most of it. But now we have more lost time to make up for. Time to do laundry. Time to finish cleaning the camping gear. Time to get ready for a Ruth House event. Time to plan HeyMama's birthday party. Time to continue our other basics of daily life. Back to the grind. 

It was good while it lasted. But now it's 1am. I spent the evening cleaning my kitchen and floors, catching up on laundry and email, and trying to feel like I'm in control of my life again. Reality has come crashing in. I return to work at 8am tomorrow, with a string of evaluations to complete and write up. So I should sleep now...

I hope you had a good week. I hope this next one is even better!