SuperGrandma... Gradma JoAnn

The week after we came back from Myrtle Beach we had a great visit from Grandma JoAnn from California. Dan and Lea picked JoAnn up at the airport and met Mommy for Mexican food at Marianos.

Grandma let Lea ride the quarter pony outside. 

Whose smile is bigger?

Lea and Grandma JoAnn got along fantastically. Grandma JoAnn had a really great week together. Grandma brought Lea great presents including Bartholomew the Bear and his book. Bartholomew says "Nah" a lot but is a pretty good Bear. Grandma, Lea and Bartholomew had all day Friday together while Mommy worked (and worked late too).
While Mommy slaved away at work (tee hee)... during the day Lea and Grandma took a walk each day. They walked to the playground and found treasures along the way. On the first day Grandma tried to take a wrong turn on the way back and Lea set her straight. Grandma JoAnn was very impressed that Lea knew her way home and was able to ask Grandma where the heck she was going. Here is a collection of thier last nature walk treasures.

On Saturday we lounged around in the morning while Daddy went off to work. Then after nap our busy day began. Since the rain from Ike had come in too we decided to run all over the Metroplex. We started the afternoon at the Dallas World Aquarium. One of Dan and my favorite places. This was our first time to bring Lea and she really liked it.

You start at the top with a view of the rainforest where you can look into the trees to see sloths, monkeys, birds and other animals. Then spiral down through other exhibits until you're under the water line where there is a big picture window to the water under the rainforest where you see manatees and grouper. It gives a great picture of all the life above and under water. A nice family portrait of 3 generations.

As I said there are many exhibits along the way. Crocodiles, spiders, a Myan exhibit, flamingos, South American Penguins. But I think what impressed both Lea AND Grandma the most was the octopus.

Did I mention Lea went potty for the first time outside the house in the bathroom at the aquarium. Lea told Grandma she had to go and we raced over. There were no accidents on our outing. This is a picture of Lea after she's gone, but to me this face is her "Oh my gosh, Mommy I have to go potty NOW!" face.

Because Lea went potty Grandma rewarded her with M&Ms and letting her take pictures with Grandma's camera. Lea took some good shots and now has a habit of asking to take pictures. She's been careful with the camera so far so we've let her take quite a few. I'll have to make a post of just Lea's shots.  

Notice the rain boots. Did I mention it was POURING outside!!

While Lea enjoyed the animals and sea life, what Lea liked best about the Aquarium was the computer screens at each exhibit where you could choose the animals and view facts about them. Lea just liked touching the screen buttons. 

I was worried our time at the Aquarium would be too short since we went late in the afternoon, but turned out to be a very long walk. And an hour and a half or so was just the right amount of time. I was exhausted... but there was MUCH more to our day. We were meeting Teresa in Plano for dinner. I hoped we could do something fun for everyone, but my idea of Pizza Planet turned out to really only be fun for Lea and Teresa & Robert. Oh who am I kidding... and Mommy! Pizza Planet had an indoor playground, rides and game. It is a children's paradise! Not quite a Grandma and Daddy paradise. I thought the pizza was pretty good. Teresa had a ball. And so did Lea...

pun intended! It was hard to get Lea out of the ball pit. 

But we paid for the rides too, so Lea's first rides were at Pizza Planet. They had 5 rides. Bumper Cars (which Mommy did not fit well in. Lea enjoyed them, but could not drive them. We just ran into walls and frustrated the girl working the ride). They had a coater that just went in a circle really fast. Back in the day at the Brazoria County Fair or Astroword I remember it being called the Alpine Ride. A blast of cold air would hit you as you went around and then went backwards. This was a much smaller version and Lea didn't want to go on it. There was also a bit ship that rocked back and forth. I didn't take a picture, but it made me laugh because they had to take out the ceiling panels so that the ship went up. The rides Lea liked best were the lady bug ride that spun as it went around and the space ship ride that went up pretty high. I was worried she'd get scared, but she took it in stride and seemed to enjoy it.

the space ship ride.

pizza planet videos

Teresa and Lea at the games. Teresa won lots of tickets and got a goodie bag for Lea with good treats.

the game prizes. Teresa meticulously picked out the prizes for Lea. 2 bracelets, a blue elephant, a purple rhino and some other things. Lea set them up this way when we got home and it made kind of a cool pictures.


At one point I went over to Dan who was having some good chat time with his mom, but otherwise I think a bit miserable. So I leaned over him and said "At least you don't work here!" The poor teenagers who manned the rides were amazingly patient with all the crazy little monkeys running around.

Boy that sounds like a busy day, but were we done... oh no. We were really wearing Grandma out. Grandma wanted to take Teresa shopping. So after a full day of aquarium and kiddo frenzy at Planet Pizza, Daddy took Lea home and Grandma JoAnn, Teresa, Robert and Mommy went to Walmart... Did I mention it was POURING outside? We were so wet and sloshy, but stayed safe. We shopped for all kinds of things at Walmart. I mostly remember the triumph of finding purple sheets for Teresa. They looked great and she was very excited about them. Finally, exhausted we checked out, took Teresa & Robert home and headed back to Dallas to collapse at about 11pm.

Sunday was another day at work for Daddy. He had lots of appointments while Grandma was here. But us girls did ok on our own. Sunday was MORE SHOPPING! But Sunday was not a day to pay retail, oh no... Sunday was a baby sale. 

We started out at the best playground near our house, its made of wood and looks like a castle.

Grandma & Lea at the playground.

After we wore Lea out... well Lea wore Grandma out at the playground, I wore Grandma out at the baby sale. There was a consignment sale half price day in Mesquite so I drug the girls along. Grandma ended up buying the lionshare of goodies as an early Christmas present for Lea (Mommy got her present early too... a hand made afgan in a beautiful rose and pink that I picked out while we were in CA in April, fast work, and beautiful). As always at the consignment sale I went crazy. Grandma loved the selection of books and we added quite a few to Lea's library. I focused partially on jammies since Lea was growing out of what we have (at least that's my excuse), but lets not kid ourselves, we got shirts, dresses, pants, pants, socks, everything... well MORE of everything.

Here is Lea showing off new Elmo jammies.

A closet full of new jammies

A SMALL sampling of Lea's new clothes. A great $15 winter coat, the most fantastic Mod dress and a jeweled collar Juicy top... all like $1.50. That way we could buy like 60 things. Some of them were socks and books, I swear! I adore the little mod dress that comes with panties.

Grandma JoAnn was here until Tuesday and it was a good time for a visit, because it was Mommy's production week. I was not able to be home for dinner Monday and Tuesday. Lea loved Grandma JoAnn taking care of her. At bath time Lea got a big treat of having her hair dried.

When Grandma JoAnn left Lea asked me to dry her hair. I explained I didn't have a hair dryer because I don't dry my hair and I got a look of what I can only explained as disdain when she discovered Mommy didn't even OWN a hair dryer. But in the temporal world of three-year-olds she got over it and we went back to going to bed with wet hair.
On JoAnn's last day her plane left right around nap time, so Grandma Lynn (Grandma Bubbie to Lea) came in to watch Lea so Dan could take Jo Ann to the airport. But first we all had lunch. It was a very nice time. We went to our favorite Chinese restaurant. The night before I tried to prepare Lea for Grandm JoAnn leaving and explained that she'd get to see Grandma Bubbie (whom we started referring to as the transitional Grandma, or in her own words "the old shoe Grandma"... I prefer transitional Grandma). So when I said we'd have lunch with two Grandma's Lea replied in the most astonished three year old voice, "Wow, that's a lot of Grandma!"

So with many hugs and kisses off went Grandma JoAnn. Lea missed her the second she was out the door. Hope we can see her again soon. It was a great visit.

Surrealist Jokes by a 3 Year Old

Lea understands that people tell jokes. She does not however understand what makes something funny, as evidenced by the following spontaneous jokes told to me to delay bedtime.

What does a monkey get to eat a banana?
In a rocking chair

Why did the chicken cross the kitchen?
To EAT!  [must yell the last word]

What do boobies have to do with a chicken?
In the closet.

Baseball with Lea

I wanted to do something a little different when I came home from work today, so we played baseball. It was so fun. Sadly we marked the end of summer by taking our pool down, but that left the most perfect square for a tiny baseball diamond. We set paving stones out (we won't teach our 3 year old to slide yet) as bases and set up the T-ball set Lea got for her birthday. Dan sat as umpire/audience cheering us both on. Lea would hit the ball and run AROUND the bases. Dan thought it was so funny that Lea never touched the bases, but I was pleased she (usually) went the right way round the bases. We simplified the rules a bit. It was "whoever hits the ball runs around the bases." The other person runs and gets the ball and tries to get the batter out. But for us the only way to get the batter out was to tag Home plate. We kept the rules simple for Lea. Surprise, surprise, she beat Mommy 5-3. But I have to admit I didn't put my all into it. Plus we had a golf break in the middle of the game. So for a rather unathletic family a evening of "base-golf-ball" was something pretty different. And pretty darn fun!

Holy Hanna What a Vacation

In the wake of Ike it seems a bit trival, but really when has that stopped one of my stories. We just survived a big storm. When I left work back on Aug. 25 for my almost two weeks of vacation I said the only thing that could ruin our fantastic beach vacation would be illness or an act of God. Well, we had both.

Hanna really comes at the end of this story, but since I lead with it, I might as well continue. There were warnings the last half of the week and we kept our eye on it, flipping to the weather channel every so often. But the weather didn't give any signs of an impending storm. We had beautiful weather every day until Friday, the day before we left, and the day it made landfall. And then there was rain. Lots of rain. Lea didn't get to go swimming since they closed the pools, stowed the lawn chairs and put "no swimming" flags on the beach. But we let her play in the rain at lunch.

playing in the rain

We decided to stick it out since Hanna had not upgraded to a hurricane and seemed very loose in form. Nothing like Ike. Plus the locals all shrugged their shoulders and said "oh, we've had worse thunderstorms this spring." But as the storm hit around 1 am my mom and I got up and watched the news. I hadn't thought of the storm surge that pushes the tide up. I began to worry about flooding, but we were never concerned about the winds and rain. With winds under 70 miles an hour those buildings had seen worse. And we really had nothing to be concerned about. The wind blew, the rain fell and the waves crashed, but they didn't even seem to make it to the hotel property.

And we could tell. Did I mention we had the most awesome view. We were so close to the beach that we had to walk out on the balcony to look down on the sand. When we looked out the window, it was like being on a boat, all we saw was water.

Here is the view from our condo. Three sliding glass doors that opened to the ocean on the 15th floor. The only floor above us was the penthouse (which seemed to be occupied by elephants with a furniture moving fetish).


Bit ahead of myself I'm afraid, which happens when you start with the end of the story... 

So we left Texas around noon on Aug. 26 and drove for 16 hours split into two days through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and on to Georgia. All of which got a mini playlist on my ipod. I had at least two songs for every state. Louisiana Saturday Night, Mississippi God Damn, Sweet Home Alabama and Devil Went Down to Georgia among the highlights. And ended up in Augusta, Georgia where we spent three wonderful nights with Grampy, Margartet and Tina. Lea and I slept at Tinas where Lea loved playing with Tina's kitten Cally.

The main attraction was swimming at Grampy's. Their pool is fantastic. It has a diving board which our new baby doll loved. Lea named baby doll Tree. Why, we don't know, but we couldn't disuade her. I say its karma for Dan teaching Lea to say "dirty Hippies" so now she's naming her babies Hippy-like names.

Tree the dolly was Lea's vacation present, a Rub-a-Dub dolly acquired from ebay. I had a Rub-a-Dub dolly that I loved, and I thought it would be cool to get one for Lea. So we got her, shipped from someone who throws away even less stuff than me who has a 3 pack a day habit. Poor Tree was like a doll shaped Nicotine patch. But after a few times of being hurled into the pool and a few trips to the bath and hair washing, Tree started to not stink. Now she just smells like your run of the mill 30 year old doll.

But what Tree did do was bring Grampy and Lea together quickly. It turns out the Grampy is the best baby doll saver in the whole world. Lea would make Tree "dive" and by that I mean hurling her across the diving board to fall face first into the deep end. She has her float so she was ok, but seldom floated face up.

So Lea would hurl baby doll into the pool and call for Grampy to retrieve her. They played and played the save baby game. We all also played catch with plastic scoop things and squirted each other with water guns. We also just had a blast swimming.
Tree the dolly goes for a dive.

Videos at Grampy's pool

But swimming and saving baby were not the only things Lea and Grampy did. Lea wanted to collect things in the backyard so Grampy brought out the pine cone pickers. They are these giant sissor like things made for picking up pine cones so you don't poke your hands. Lea demonstrated her awesome hand eye coordination and impressed Grampy who was happy to be left holding the bag, tee hee.


Tina had to teach school all week, but took Friday off. On Friday we had a big dinner at Tina's with Miss Gladys (and her faboo blueberry crumble, YUM!). Then after nap we all went swimming. I don't know who had more swimming, Tina or Lea. Tina had Lea jumping in the deep end off the diving board. Tina would catch Lea and took a few lumps for her efforts. But Tina had Lea diving off the board with no one really catching her. And then Lea stole Tina's hat.

Lea and Tina


Tina and Lea


As I said Lea and I stayed over at Tina's. Due to the kitty cat, Dan could not stay with us. It worked out ok. Until Thursday night when Lea woke up screaming with what I presumed to be a sore throat. Like I said, "illness or act of God". We didn't know the act of God was to come and we hadn't even gotten to Myrtle Beach yet. So yes Lea had a cold. We found a primary care doctor on Lea's insurance who said "Yep, she's sick." But he said she'd get well just as quickly having fun and swimming if she felt up to it. Lea didn't get any sicker so it turned out ok. We made sure she took her naps and got warm right after swimming. Tina started getting sick the same night and she did not fare as well as Lea. The doctor tested Lea for strep and said "no strep." Tina ended up with strep, sinus infection and bronchitis. I got sick on the last few days, but basically in time to hunker down for the storm. Dan stayed healthy the whole time. Perhaps because he didn't stay at Tina's with the germs she dragged home from the school where she teaches. But Tina had to stay and work,  so she collected germs all week to get pretty sick. But we were at the end of the first leg of our trip.  Saturday we were to head off to our beach paradise.

So once we were well medicated on baby tylenol, we planned our last leg of the vacation. Mom and Dan looking at the map plotting the course. Mom drove Margarete and Grampy in their car and we had walkie talkies to coordinate things like lunch and direction. It worked out great.



On the way to Myrtle Beach I got to sit in front like a big girl, tee hee. With Grandma in the other car, the front seat was mine. Otherwise I sit in the back with Lea which is fun, but not as spacious. For the record the songs going into Carolina were Sweet Caroline and Carolina on my Mind.

Even with me up front, Lea remained entertained. She is such a terrific traveler. She watched movies and I had a Blues Clues game for her on the laptop. We played different pretend games, colored, used magnets and did puzzles on a cookie sheet I brought that worked well for a lap desk. Here she is digging for toys in her backpack.


We finally arrived at Myrtle Beach on the Saturday before Labor Day. It turned out to be the best first day of vacation ever (even though it was our fourth day away from home). Well... best first day for me, not for Grandma. Grandma actually left her purse at the McDonalds we had lunch at so she and Grampy immediately turned around and backtracked 2 hours, but it was waiting for her when she got there with a very kind staff. Dan unpacked the incredible amount of stuff we brought with us and we were ready to hit the beach. Not more than 2 hours passed before we had our toes in the sand. Lea, Dan and I hit the beach and the pool, and Grandma and Grampy were back for dinner.

I had done some research on events in Myrtle Beach and found fireworks the day we arrived. Since Lea hadn't been well we didn't think it was a good idea for her to be out as late as fireworks would keep us, so Dan and I got to go have a mini-date night. It was a small fireworks event at what seemed to be a very residential part of town. We were very close to the fireworks and could even see the ground displays, which there was a lot of. There were these great fountains of fireworks like a sprinkler across the sky. It was really a good display. Then home for well needed rest after the final leg of our driving journey.
A very poor picture of some pretty good fireworks.

Dan and me at Fireworks


And for the most party the rest of the week was heavenly, but uneventful. 

Breakfast, beach, pool, lunch, nap, beach, pool, dinner, bed, repeat. 

Just the best vacation spot every. That complex is fantastic because the beach and pool are so accessible. Sadly Grandma started getting sick the first part of our week there, but was well enough by Wednesday to trek down to the beach and even came in the pool. Margarete went into the ocean with Dan and grampy there for support. She got a bit tousled by one wave.

Lea had no fear. We kept the floaties on her when we were on the beach and she'd get ahead of herself a few time and took a wave in the face and got knocked on her tush. But it never slowed her down long. We kept a close watch on her and always made sure someone was in front and behind her as the rip tide was pretty strong. It was odd that mid week, as the storm approached the ocean was the calmest. Literally the calm before the storm. Of course as the storm grew close on Thursday the rip tide was exhausting to stand up in. I had fun catching a few waves body surfing, riding them all the way to the shallows, only to wind up with piles of sand in my suit.

Grampy joined us on the beach almost every day. He played in the waves with Lea and they picked up shells. They had so much fun together. I also had a lot of fun with Grampy. We had such a nice visit and spent good time together.

grampy and lea on the beach


grampy and lea on the beach #2


on the beach


Looks like someone is ready to go to the beach! Lea had a enough swimsuits to wear two suits almost every day. Lea had at least 8 swim suites and Mommy had 5.


Besides swimming we built a lot of sand castles, and STOMPED a lot of sand castles. Lea  likes me to build something up so she can stomp it. I built lines of turtles for Lea to stomp on. Lea saved Grandma from attack of the turtles!

Lea even wanted to stomp other people's castles. One afternoon when Dan headed in early I took Lea back to the room from the furthest away pool, lovingly nicknamed the "monkey pool" ... anyway we went the long way back and walked on the beach instead of taking the sidewalk path. I told her if everyone who had built sandcastles that day was gone she could stomp them. I figured sandcastles were ephemeral and would be washed away at night anyway, so why shouldn't she have fun. But I didn't want her to destroy anything within sight of those who built it. And make no mistake there was some work put into sand castles on that beach. Well... to make a long story longer... on this particular day a boy and his family created not only a castle, but an entire kingdom. There must have been at least 30 sand molded castles with a wall around it. I figured we could have some real fun stomping those since the first we'd seen this kingdom was around 11 am. But alas, the family had come back to watch the tide take the kingdom. Lea and I stomped an abandoned castle and made our way to the room. We had dinner, took a bath and looked out on the balcony. The family was STILL there watching the tide eat away the kingdom. Finally around 9pm the incredibly patient mother took her son away. Mom, Grampy and I kept tabs on this crazy family taking pictures of the tide slowly eroding their kingdom. We said how crazy that they didn't have anything better to do on vacation then watch the tide, but then there we were standing on the porch watching them watch the tide, so what did that say about us?!? But it gave us something to talk about.

On the beach video


A crazy look from Lea. The googles didn't work well because the water wasn't clear enough.

Aside from our luxurious beach lounging and swimming we did each do a thing here or there.

On Tuesday, Dan, Lea and I took off for an evening on the boardwalk. There is an old part of Myrtle Beach where there are some old hotels and some really kitschy signs and a boardwalk with arcades and ice cream shops. The arcade was so neat because it was open to the beach. It was different than anything I'd ever been to and I had a blast. Lea had fun playing games and thanks to a stranger who gave us like 200 tickets we got a cool pirate toy that is still in the favorite toy rotation!
arcade video


at the arcade

playing skee ball

But the highlight of the boardwalk for me was the Gay Dolphin Gift Cove. The name alone was worth the price of a vacation, but the retro signs and the store itself were just awesome. The store was PACKED with souvenirs and decor. There were all these levels, and I don't mean different floor, but these sets of like 5 steps up to a level that would hold say religious wall hangings and blue dolphins. Another 5 steps to the left would have rooster statues and pirate collectables. A few steps down to the right would have signed ceramic collectables in a glass case and wood carved pelicans. It was bizarre and fun. The best part for me was Lea being a little me. I was concerned we wouldn't be able to stay very long, or leave without paying for stuff she'd broken... but she had little shorts on and I said, "you keep one hand in your pocket, don't touch a thing, with the other hand, hold mine." And she walked around for at least half an hour with that little hand tucked in her pocket. But she had an eye out for kitsch treasure just like Mommy. She would wander around and say (without getting the irony that Dan and I infuse the same statements with, but she's learning) "Mommy, do you need a plastic rooster?" "Daddy do you want a pelican on a stick?" "Mommy, do you want one of these?" She wouldn't even know how to describe it, but her keen 3 year old eye knew it was hideous and worth comment! That's my girl!

And as we left the board walk we saw the Carolina Moon. The South Carolina flag has a palmetto palm and a crescent moon. It turns out the moon is backwards from this photo (and a lot bigger!), but I thought it was pretty cool to see the state logo right there on our walk back to the car. 
We ate on our way back to the room at the Flamingo Grill which turned out be a bit priceier than its diner exterior. Dan and I shared a yum-delicious steak topped with lobster while Lea had her standard chicken fingers (though I tried to convince her they were Flamingo Toes... she wasn't having any of it... she just wanted to play with the pirate from the arcade.)

On Wednesday Dan went fishing. He had reserved his place on a boat several months in advance, but with the impending storm, they canceled. Looking at the surf that day we think they were just taking an easy day off or didn't have enough clients. But thanks to what Dan later stated was "the best mother-in-law ever", Grandma made some phone calls and found Dan a trolling, half-day boat. It was about the same price and while they ended up not trolling, he caught fish! But not just A FISH... He caught a shark. He also caught five snappers. We ate them on Thursday, oven-steamed in a foil pack, with wine, butter and lemon. They were delicious! What a treat.
Dan and shark

On Friday as the rain came, Grandma, Lea, Dan and I made our way to a big shopping center called Broadway on the Beach. The carousel and boat ride we looked forward to were understandably closed, but they had a playground and fudge so we were happy. On the way home we found an Irish Bar to have lunch and watch the rain from the porch. Hanna was blowing and bringing rain, but that was were we heard the locals say they'd had worse thunderstorms, so we ate and enjoyed the rain. This was where Lea played in the rain.

That was about it for outings. Like I said, mostly it was just enjoying the beach and pool and each other's company.

As we prepared for vacation Lea, Dan and I watched last year's videos and heard Grandma say "Lea, let Margarete teach you to shake your butt." So we talked a lot about Margarete shaking her butt as we prepared Lea for vacation. And it went a little something like this... 



Dan picked up more moves than Lea, but I don't know if he learned them from Margarete. Looks like he's had his moves for a few years!

Stuck inside, with the pools closed and rain on the beach we tried a game of yatzhee. 

We battened down our hatches, rode out the storm, and packed up for the trip home. Again Grandma drove Margarete and Grampy to Agusta. Margarete tried to find reasons for us to dawdle and visit, but we hit the potty and were back on the road for a long trip home. The ride home always seems longer than the road there. I guess it's the lack of excitement over your new destination.  I can't imagine looking forward to anything more than I looked forward to sleeping in my own bed after almost two weeks away. 

The ride home wasn't as tough as some drives we've had and we all fared well, especially our youngest little trooper. Home sweet home, and time to prepare for Grandma JoAnn's visit!