Grams Camp

Last week,  Grandad and Grams enjoyed a 4-day visit from Our Little Princess. She's been to stay with us before, but that has usually been for the convenience of her parents, usually because they needed babysitting services. This was a purely recreational visit which I hope will lead up to an annual week-long "Grams Camp." What I envision is that one week every summer, all of our grandchildren will visit and spend a week just doing fun things with Grams and Pop-Pop.

We were in San Antonio for Grams' reunion with old friends, so it was convenient to bring her back home when we came home on Sunday. Honestly, since she's 2-1/2 years old now, I expected some separation anxiety and some crying for her mama, especially at bedtime. I was pleasantly surprised that there was none of that. We kept up her routine of taking her bath, drinking her milk, reading a story, and going to bed and had very few problems getting her to bed. The last night she was here we did have a bit of a problem. She Skyped with her mom and dad just before bedtime and then she cried for them and didn't want to go to bed, but after I rocked her for a while she finally settled down.

Grandad was working in the daytime, so she and I mostly just played at home. We're still dealing with a terrible drought here in South Texas and it's way too hot to let her play outside. By Monday afternoon we were ready to get out of the house and I had to water my plants. I took her out in the front yard with me and when I unrolled the water hose, she wanted to play in the water. So like the white trash neighbors that everyone loves, I just stripped her down to her panties and handed her the hose. You're only two years old once.

On Tuesday Grandad took the day off and we all spent the day at the Texas State Aquarium which is located on Corpus Christi Beach. It's been years since we went there and I must say, it's so much more fun with a little one. Plus they've added a water play area that just opened this year. Needless to say, she loved that. Her favorite part was definitely the water park, followed closely by the Nemo tank. As always, I love the jellyfish tanks. For such nasty little stinging creatures, they sure are beautiful.

Just before we finally took her to the splash park, we took a trip to dolphin bay. It's beautiful and a fun place to take pictures. This is my favorite from the entire day.

She had so much fun at the Splash Park. She absolutely loved it. I walked around with her trying to stay dry since I didn't have my swimsuit. Needless to say, some of the big kids thought it was fun to get me wet.

She had so much fun at the aquarium. This is what she looked like as soon as we got in the car. Seriously, we were not even out of the parking lot yet. You may notice that we also acquired one sparkly pink stuffed sea turtle.

Wednesday, we stayed home except for a short trip to HEB. Then by Thursday afternoon, we were a little bit stir crazy and had to get out of the house. With the temperatures in the upper 90s, it was too hot to go to the park and I can't stand McDonalds. So the two of us went to the mall. We road the train, which at $5 per person for a very short ride is too expensive. Then we went to the play area and finished up with a cookie. La Palmera Mall has a very nice play area for children 5 years old and under. That makes it pretty safe with no big kids running around. And, I must say, she played really well with other kids.

We thoroughly enjoyed having Our Little Princess come for a visit. I'm hoping to make it a summer tradition to have all the grandchildren for a week every summer. Time will tell whether we have them all together or a few at a time.

"Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children." – Alex Haley