A Weekend of Togetherness

This is night one of the big grandparent "sleepover". We drove our motor home to daughter Cindy's house and parked in the driveway in preparation for the departure of Cindy and Michael for a long deserved get away weekend by themselves. I am living in the house with the three grandkids while Gary uses the motor home as his get away place when the noise starts to close in on him. Only problem was tonight the kids kept sneaking out to the motor home to "visit" with Grandpa. Neat bonding times for us all.

One activity we have planned is a trip to the Dollar Store so they can each shop for their parents and siblings. I did it by myself with them last year and was looking forward to Gary's assistance this year as 3 year old Matthew (or Wilson as Gary calls him) is a handfull in a store. Tonight we were discussing our shopping trip over dinner and Jenna came up with the idea that they could also buy surprise gifts for Grandpa if he was not with them...Gary really perked up at that but I am not going to let him get out of a trip through the dollar store with his 3 year old grandson that easily !

On another note, I get daily updates from Jess DeVaney, president of TOP, regarding dog tags he is sending back to veterans or their families (if the veteran was KIA or deceased since the war) as a result of the research and letter writing that Cindy and I have done over the last 6 weeks. Most reports are heartwarming and they are very appreciative that they are receiving an extra "Christmas gift" this year. I love the feeling that it is touching so many lives and look forward to getting back to doing more research...plus when the TOP group comes back from their March trip they will be bringing back another 200 to 300 freshly recovered dog tags to be worked on. Ah...retirement !

Enjoy this season everyone.

Linda