Christopher's first trip home.

Christopher decided that he wanted to come home on liberty for the weekend. He couldn't leave base until 4:00pm Friday and had to be back on base by 5:00am on Monday. He bought his tickets for the train and we were to pick him up in Ann Arbor at 11:30pm on Friday. That's the way it should have happened! What really happened was; He couldn't get off base early enough to catch the metro to Chicago to catch the train for Ann Arbor. He didn't leave until Saturday morning. Katy & Larry picked him up in Ann Arbor about 2:30pm. He stopped at the campground before going into Flint to surprise his friends. Got back to the house about 5:00am
Sunday and was suppose to be at the campground's by noon so he could spend some time with Grandma & Gramps. One of his friends was sick, she has a knot in her appendix, so Grandma & Gramps came to the house to visit Chris for about 15 minutes and then he went to see the sick friend. He should be at the campground for the Reunion about 3:00pm. At 4:15pm Chris finally shows up at the campground and we have to leave to take him to Battle Creek for the 8:30pm train. When we get to Battle Creek the train is 20 minutes late. Which turns into 45 minutes late. He gets on the train and still should be able to make it back to the base with time to spare.
When he gets to Kalamazoo there is a 3 hour wait, a conductor missed the train and they had to wait for him to drive into there, needless to say he called the ship (dorm) and told them what was going on. He made it back to base just a little after 5am Monday and had to start right in with classes. He still thinks it's just great to come home for the weekend. I think it's a big waste of money and time along with me worrying that he won't make it back on base on time.

My summer vacation!

The week after VBS Mary, Greg & I stayed at the campground to just relax! The Wykes Reunion was going to be held there this year the following weekend, so we stayed and camped for the 4 days in between. It was really quiet and calming. On Thursday Larry's sister pulled her camper in and by Friday July 25th there were 8 campers on our group lot. It was the first time that the Reunion was camping, we had a huge fire pit and cooked most of our meals together. On Saturday Jeff Cox (nephew in-law) cooked breakfast burritos for the whole group,
and Saturday night he cooked steaks (everyone brought their own)! Saturday afternoon we tie-dyed T-shirts to wear to the dinner on Sunday, so everyone knew who camped for the weekend.
We tie-dyed 34 shirts. Then the kids did a scavenger hunt, they had to go to other campers and ask for the things on the list. There was also a fishing contest, the longest fish won a new rod and reel. There were 36 of us camping. Next year hopefully there will be more.

Vacation Bible School

Mary & I spent the week of July 14th through the 18th at VBS for the Byron Methodist Church. We were the craft leaders for the pre-schoolers, 3-4-5 year olds. We camp every year with a group of others from the church that are there to volunteer for the week. This is the 5th year that Mary & I have helped with the pre-schoolers. In years past we had one age group, 4 or 5 year olds the whole day, this year the kids rotated to each station, Story time, crafts, and games.
It seemed to work out better the way we did it this year. Each day we would have between 40 and 50 pre-schoolers. The beginning of the week everything was going pretty well, of course there's atleast 1 or 2 that don't listen to what your trying to tell them your going to do, but by Friday I had lost complete control! That day I was lucky to have 1 or 2 that listened and the rest just ran amuck! By Friday we were all glad to have VBS over for another year. I think that next year I'll volunteer for the older grades. I'm getting to old to be a babysitter for 50 pre-schoolers!

Greg becomes a bank!

The only exciting thing that has happened this last week
was that Gregory decided he wanted to become a bank, by
swallowing a quarter! It happened yesterday while Katy was at
work. Mary decided to go to work with Katy so she could use
the wireless Internet at the book store. Greg was upstairs playing
a game on Katy's TV, or so I thought, when he came down
choking and told me he had swallowed a quarter. Being the
GREAT Grandmother that I am, I called 911! The paramedics
came and took his blood pressure and oxygen levels, he was
talking and breathing just fine. Then the ambulance shows up,
but Katy got there and took him into the after hours clinic.
After x-rays showed that it is in his stomach, the Dr. said that
it should pass through in a few days. If you remember it happened
when he was about 2 1/2 years old, that's how we ended up with
the bird, HURLEY, we rescued it from the hospital parking lot.
At least this time I didn't end up with an extra animal!

Christopher's Graduation

This last week has been a real emotional rollercoaster. Mary's open house was June 1st. Then on the 5th of June we left after Mary got out of school to drive to Chicago for Christopher's Graduation from Navy boot camp. Jessica flew in from Connectiuct to Midway and took a taxi to our hotel (44 miles north). We got up at 5:30 Friday morning to be at the base by 6:45am. We drove onto the base and had to go through security, asked everyone for ID and had 2 dogs sniffing all of the cars. Luckily we weren't first in line, those cars had to go through a real search, everyone out of their cars, everything out of their cars, hood up, trunks searched. After we parked we had to go through another security to make sure we were on Chris's list of people that could attend. Then it was into the building and finding Christoper's division. Of course it was all the way on the far side of the building. It was amazing to watch the recuits come into the hall. Christopher's Division was the first ones through. I didn't think that I would be able to pick him out of everyone, but there he was third row over, second from the back. Chris had to report to his new station at 12:30pm. (Accros the street) He did have leave from 3:00pm Friday until 9:00pm Sunday. We took him out for a couple of good meals and shopping. Then we were able to drive him back onto base and see where he will be living for the next 83 days. Then it was time to leave so we could get back for Mary's Graduation on Sunday June 8th at 2:00pm.