Suits Me to a "T"

I've said it many times today but I'll say it again.  T-ball has got to be the cutest thing ever.

I don't think kids were playing T-ball when ours were of that age.  They played Little League for awhile, but I don't remember there being T-ball games.

Brianna is the shortest and cutest on her team, the Muck Dogs.  She's also the only girl.

Walt and I got to the field before she arrived and we managed to run into a kid from her team, whose mother told us where to find the game.  I wanted to giggle all the way to where we could sit down.  The sight of a whole bunch of little munchkins with uniforms, gloves and caps, throwing balls to each other was just so endearing.  I swear some of them only came up to my knees.

Eventually, Alice Nan, Bri & Lacie and their babysitter, Tom, and Walt with chairs all arrived.

Bri was going to be catcher for the first inning, so her coach helped her to get into her catcher gear.

There was a group huddle and pep talk before the game against the River Bandits started.

And then the game (all 3 innings) started.  Lacie wasn't much interested in the game, but amused herself taking selfies with her babysitter's cell phone.

When it was time for the Muck Dogs to bat, Bri put on her batting gloves.  She is the only one on the team with gloves.

They sat in a row until it was their turn to bat

Bri got a solid hit...

...ran to first base...

...and then made sure her gloves were still on right.

Her next time around, she was all ready for that run to second base.

Lacie was proving no baseball fan...

...so Daddy did a little distracting.

I don't know if anybody knows who won (if anyone), but a good show of sportsmanship was displayed at the end of the game.

 
I am on cute overload tonight.

The Big Day

This was the day I had come for...and it did last longer than 2 minutes. But first there was the day to fill.  Joe and Alice went off to work and I was going to run some errands in town.  First I took a shower and realized that I had forgotten to pack shirts.  I remember now that I was in the middle of deciding which tops to take, after having packed Bri's favorite of my t-shirts when I was interrupted.  After that I just threw in some socks and closed the suitcase and left.

On the ride down, you may remember, I bought cherries.  Nice, juicy cherries, and so the shirt I was wearing was spotted with cherry juice so before I did anything, I decided to do a small load of wash, so I could at least trade off the two shirts that I have.

When laundry was done, I drove over to Tom and Laurel's to drop off a card in their mail box, something I meant to mail a week ago.

Then I went down to Sambo's Restaurant on the beach in Santa Barbara.  I may have told this story before, but you know that the chain of Sambo's was based on the book about "little black Sambo" and I think the franchise went out of business during the Civil Rights era.  Only in the original book, Little Sambo is Indian, not African, and the restaurant here was the original one, so it survived the Sambo franchise purge and still exists today.

I like it because it has great crab eggs benedict and the wall decorations tell the story of the little boy and the tigers who turned into butter for his pancakes.

After my late lunch, I went looking for somewhere to get flowers for Brianna.  Are florists a thing of the past?  I didn't find anything at all in either Santa Barbara or neighboring Goleta (where Alice and Joe live), so I ended up at Von's supermarket, where the girl in the flower section had apparently never heard of a "small bouquet" and tried to sell me a Sponge Bob balloon instead.  I did find something resembling a small bouquet and bought it.

At 5:30, I went to Tom and Laurel's.  Bri seemed happy to be getting flowers of her own (Laurel had received flowers at an event the previous night).  Lacie was very cute getting ready to go to the show.

Brianna wore one of the Minnie Mouse bows that Ashley made for her in her hair.

Aunt Jeri arrived, exhausted after spending all day in transit, just before we left for Bri's school.  She had flown into Burbank and then took the train up to Santa Barbara and was picked up by Joe and Alice on their way to a concert at a local casino!

There were lots of parents and grandparents at the recital.

Fans of Lost may recognize this Dad who was there watching his child perform, taking video with his iPhone like the rest of us.  His hair has changed, but the smile is unmistakable!

They divided the dancers into two groups and each group did four dances and then, at the end of the show, each dancer got two minutes to do whatever he or she wanted to do, after which they took a bow and were presented with a beautiful red rose.

Brianna looked like she was having such a good time.  Most of the time she was covered by Reese, the little girl in the black dress, which made taking pictures challenging, but I did get a few good shots.

When it was all over there were nice healthy snacks set out for the kids in the school area.

Jeri and I went back to Tom and Laurel's and I read Bri a story called "F Words."  I told Tom I knew a few F words that probably weren't in the book!

We left when the girls went to bed and we stopped at a local sushi place to get something to bring home to eat, since the restaurants were closing.  I left about 3/4 of my dinner in the fridge to have later, as I just wasn't hungry.

Yes, it was worth the 7-8 hour drive to be here to see the show.  Really a fun day.  Tomorrow I'm taking my little girl to the zoo while Bri is at school, then we are going to join them for "family movie night."

Fantasies

Two of my Grandma fantasies came true this weekend.  I pictured being in the kitchen, fixing food with my grandchildren, and that happened yesterday when Bri and I made clam dip and, later, fruit salad.

The second fantasy occurred later in the day.  When we arrived at their house, Tom was watching the 49er game (and not very happy about it).  Bri was in the kitchen playing with her Lego blocks.  She and I played together for some time, making a garden, a house, and cars out of Lego.  

Whenever Tom let out an agonizing scream, she would run into the living room to find out what happened and then report back to me. Sadly, our son was not a happy camper today.

When Lego construction finally ran its course, Bri drew several pictures for me.  

This is her family.  Daddy is the guy on the left, Mommy is the black figure, Lacie is the tiny figure and you can tell Brianna on the right because of the curly hair.  The family is in a house (the orange circle around them).  I asked her to sign it for me because I want to send it to Fred, in the Philippines, who sends me such great drawings.

Laurel and Bri went off to the farmer's market while Tom selflessly volunteered to stay home while Lacie napped and, oh yeah, he might watch a little football too.  He got Lacie in bed and about then, noted that Grandpa was sleeping.

Tom texted Laurel:  "Dad is out; we are still working on Lacie."

When Laurel and Bri returned, Tom was making a lasagna to take to the family of Bri's BFF, whose mother just gave birth a week ago.  Bri sat and watched more football with Grandpa.  There was some discussion about whether to hope the Raiders or the Jets should win.  We were for Oakland, of course.  Bri liked the Jets because their uniforms are yellow.

Finally my second fantasy came true.  Laurel came in with a bowl of popcorn and a video and we sat there watching Bambi with Bri.  We had given it to her a year ago, I think, and I hoped we could watch it with her, but there was never time and I've been mildly disappointed, but today I watched my favorite cartoon with our granddaughter and it was great.

Of course I may have scarred her for life.  I should have asked Laurel ahead of time if Bri knew what really happened to Bambi's mother.  I suspect from the number of times she asked me about why the hunter killed her that maybe a softer excuse for her disappearance may have been given in previous viewing of the movie!

A Good Day After All

Well, it was a crazy day today!  When I went to sleep last night I had written my journal entry, but not my Titanic review.  I knew that Walt would be heading off to the hospital in the morning to see Norm and I would have all day to work on it.

Then around quarter to 9, he reached his sister-in-law, who said that Norm was doing well and was going to be released from the hospital some time today, which meant he wouldn't be there when Walt showed up.

Walt asked if I still wanted to go to Santa Barbara and I told him I did.  I didn't think we had prayer of getting there in time to have dinner with Tom's family, but we would just head out as soon as we could and decide what we were going to be doing along the way.  It was 10:30 when we left.

I was originally making notes of how long it takes to get from point A to point B (1 hour to Danville, 1 hour from Danville to Gilroy, 30 min from Gilroy to the Burger Queen.)

(that's our fancy red rented Chrysler!)

After lunch at the Burger Queen, I took over driving and so I stopped keeping my little log.  I drove until I started feeling sleepy and then Walt drove the rest of the way.  We were listening to a David Baldacci book en route and I could not believe it when we pulled up in front of Tom & Laurel's house at 5:30, just in time for dinner.

It was so good to see the girls again.  Lacie has grown so much and is now all smiles.

And I was happy to see that Daddy is continuing the tradition with daughter #2.

(Lacie doesn't seem to enjoy it quite as much as Bri did at this age, but she still has the body strength to hold herself up on Daddy's hand).

Walt and Bri played in the puppet theater while Lacie sat in my lap and watched, and then Walt read the book we had brought Bri to her and then showed her the "this is the church, this is the steeple" thing, which was a bit too advanced for her.

I was pleased to see that Lacie eats much better than Bri did at her age, though she had some reservations about avocado.

Bri helped toss the salad and when Walt held the phone to her ear so she could talk to Uncle Norm, she told him she couldn't talk because she was cooking dinner.

In conversations with Bri before and after dinner, I learned some interesting things.  Big elephants live in the zoo but little elephants live in your refrigerator and leave footprints in the butter.  They also smash food, like carrots, so that it can be fed to babies.  I also learned that an elephant was the father of a little sheep and when I asked who the sheep's mother was, she told me it was the bear.  Funny, but the sheep didn't resemble either of its parents.

We played a little with her Calico Critters playhouse.  

 

 There were four cars parked outside the playhouse, which she explained were for trash, recycle, bottles, and paper.

We had given her a bedroom set for the house for her birthday and oddly enough, the bedroom set came with a clarinet, I guess for those people who like to play the clarinet in bed.  She had one of the characters, who was not wearing clothes, play the clarinet and when I commented that the character had no clothes on and let her know that Aunt Jeri doesn't play the clarinet without clothes. Bri wants to know why.

I trust Jeri will write and let her know why one puts on clothes before playing the clarinet.

Such a fun day it turned out to be, ultimately.  I'm glad we are here, even if it's very, very briefly.

"I'm Bored"

This is a phrase which you will never hear from Bri. For one thing, I don't know that she has encountered the word, for another, there is nothing so large or so small that does not fascinate her, whether it is an olive fallen off a tree, how a bouncy house is built, what happens to water and hay when you jump in a bouncy house or why there is gristle in meat.

When do children lose that wonder and excitement? It's difficult to think of her as a teenager complaining that she is bored and that there is nothing to do.

Today we met Laurel and the girls at the Earl Warren Showgrounds and we visited the "bouncy houses," a group of big air-filled structures made for climbing, sliding and bouncing. Brianna arrived with her tiger costume (not her Halloween costume, she was quick to inform me) and Mom helped her put on makeup. She was very cute.

Then we spent about 2 hours following Bri around through all the bouncy houses, watching, helping, carrying her shoes, etc.

The structure below was particularly interesting.

You enter and exit the bug through that orange piece in front. Watching Bri sliding out through the slit made me think of being born again!

Tom had said that after the bouncy house fun, it would be nap time. What he didn't say was that it would be Walt and me who needed the naps. I walked in the door of Alice Nan's house, went directly to the couch and slept for an hour and a half!

Later in the evening we went to Tom and Laurel's for dinner. It was Lacie's "awake time" so we had fun watching her looking around this strange new world she is trying to figure out.

She definitely knows her parents and follows them with her eyes when they move around. She also smiles and had a good chat with Daddy.

We all enjoyed the pot roast Tom had made and then Walt and I left when it was time for Bri to go to bed.

All things considered, a fun day spent with the grandkids!

More Butterflies

If yesterday's smashed butterfly on the hood of the car was an indication that my cousin Shirley was around, today's experience must indicate that she returned, and brought all of my dead ancestors with her!

Our day started around noon, when we stopped by Tom's to join him on a trip to the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum. Particularly this exhibit:

After a briefing by the museum staff to make sure Bri wouldn't touch or step on the butterflies, we were admitted to this marvelous little enclosure filled with butterflies and children with their parents.

It was just magical, with butterflies everywhere. Bri had an encounter with this guy

and was fascinated watching how this one drank water.

I tried getting some good shots, but they move so quickly and most of my close-ups came out blurry, though I did get a couple I liked.

We went through some other exhibits, but by the time we got to the car, Bri was really zonked and fell asleep on the ride home.

We left Laurel to put Bri to sleep while Walt and I went to Denny's to get lunch, then to visit our friends Dick and Gerry, and then off to meet the family at an Italian restaurant for dinner.

When dinner was over, we drove out to the end of Stearn's Wharf to check out the reflection of the full moon on the water.

It was pretty cold (heaven!) so Alice Nan and Joe's 85 year old Mom, Evelyn huddled together to keep warm.

I went wandering around trying to get a good picture of a seagull.

All things considered, a very good day!