To continue the saga of our grandsons visit, he came here with the intent to break a record of eatting a cheeseburger or hot dog everyday of his 8 day visit. We are on day 5 of “his” vacation and I cannot look another hot dog or hamburger in the face. We have been to the zoo, Universal and the circus, even Costco and have had so many nitrates that Randy has begun to glow when sitting in the dark, trying to escape for a few minutes of quiet.
We have purchased a snow cone for $12.00 and a box of popcorn for $8…..I have begun to realize that our Italy vacation is just not going to happen this year, as our vacation “fund” has gone to help Jaden pursue his dream of eatting junk food every day. We have forgotten what the wonderful sound of “wheel of fortune” sounds like when Vana is turning letters, but we now go to sleep counting “angry birds” or singing “doodle jump” as we fall asleep exhausted from riding the Simpson ride more times than I care to remember.
Tomorrow will find us headed to the Long Beach Acquarium where Jaden has already asked us if we will be passing an In and Out Burger on the way. I lied and said that they closed down all the hamburger joints down by the beach, because the sea gulls were allergic to the smell of hamburgers…….Don’t judge me! We have watched Rango, Captain America, and Mars Needs Moms, gained 10 pounds from all the junk food and the little darling never sleeps. With all the miracle drugs that have been invented, where is the pill that you can give 10 year olds that makes them fall asleep around 7 and sleep until 10 the next day? Any politician that can invent that will get my vote. Randy and I have decided that we are not in the right shape to keep up with a 10 yr old. When Jaden turns 30 we will invite him back. Maybe by then, we will be rested and have enough money saved up to feed him again.

Wednesday, August 10th, woke up at 5:30, so excited about heading to airport to pick up Jaden. He is visiting us for 8 days and we cannot be more excited. No more quiet car rides just driving around by myself during the day. Now I will have my sweet angelic 10 hr old grandson to drive around with me. We will laugh and talk about what he has done this summer and stop for ice cream and I will snap impromtu pictures of him, as he takes in the sights and sounds of Los Angeles for the next week. How memorable this will be. I cannot wait to just watch him walk off the plane and give him a giant hug.
10:00 a.m. Here he comes, walking off the plane with his cute little backpack. Wait….is that a skull and bones I see on the front of the backpack, surely not, Jaden is only 10 and I think he would still have SpongeBob Squarepants shirt and backpacks. I bet maybe he picked up the wrong backpack. We hug him while he says, “Nana…not in public….and don’t even think about kissing me.” Oh, I’m sure he is just a little fussy after getting up so early to catch the plane. Will get a real hug when we get to the car.
10:30 a.m. We are walking to the car. He tells me that he can’t talk to me until his ears pop. They are all stopped up and he just can’t hear anything. And…since his ears are all stopped up, and he cannot hear us talking, could he just play video games on my iphone in the car until his ears unstop. Of course he can, after all, he is at grandmas and he can do anything he wants, right?
11:00 a.m. We ask him if his ears are unstopped so we can talk, “not yet” he says. Isn’t this just awesome, Randy and I are having to yell over the precious sounds of Angry Birds to talk to each other. Oh…that brings back the days of living around all our family when we lost our television rights to grandkids who always had to watch the Wiggles or Elmo or SpongeBob. But….after all, when was the last time we heard Angry Birds in the background. Oh boy, this is going to be a great 8 days. Am so glad Jaden is here.
1:00 p.m. We have treated our young sweetheart to his First In and Out Burger in California. He is so excited, he even put down the iphone to eat. Things are warming up and he has even said a few words to us. Gotta love these grandkids. Can’t wait to take him and show him the beautiful homes here and the different museums. He is going to love them.
2:30 I guess the sightseeing is going to have to wait, Jaden fell asleep from being so tired from the flight. Doesn’t he look adorable, all curled up in his room. I bet the minute he wakes up all he is going to want to do is tell me about his first plane ride and what all he is wanting to do. Will be excited to have him wake up.
5:00 Have to go wake up the little darling. He is now a little fussy from being woke up. Oh well, I’m sure once he really wakes up he will start to enjoy being here. We leave to go get Randy from work, stopping at the grocery store first to let Jaden pick out a few things to eat. Wanted to be sure that we have everything he would like to have. He asked if he can sit in the car while I go in to the grocery store. He wanted to play Angry Birds. Not on your life, Mister. We go into the store and he picks out 2 frozen pizza’s and a box of cereal. He is anxious to get back to the car to play on my iphone. This bonding time isn’t quite what I expected it to be. Expect tomorrow to be a little better, after he gets rested up.
7:30 We have finished frozen pizza and tear him away from the computer to go for a walk, but make it short, as Jaden is cold. AFter all, he tells us, “I am used to the Texas heat of 105, so this 80 degrees makes me cold”. We head home. Well, that’s ok, he can curl up by me on the couch and we can watch “America’s Got Talent” together. This will be a great night…”nana, do you mind if I play Witches and Wizards on the computer while ya’ll watch AGT, I’m not really into that?” Oh, no, mister, you are going to watch AGT with us and you are going to enjoy it. Maybe if he has ice cream and brownies, that will get him in a bettter mood. Yep, that’s what he needs, sugar….so we have dessert and that makes him happy. We enjoy a little TV and around 10 I announce that I am exhausted. Getting up around 5 and then entertaining the little darling has been exhausting. Jaden, Randy and I all head to bed around….
10:00….Randy and I are asleep when I feel a presence over me…”Jaden, what’s wrong sweetie?” I can’t sleep, Nana, maybe it was the 3 hour nap or just being excited about going rock climbing in the morning….well, go read, I didn’t bring a book, well…..close your eyes and try to sleep…ok…….11:45 “nana, I still can’t sleep” Well, I can and so you just go lay there until your eyes close”
Midnight……got him a glass of water and another tucking in….he’d better better go to sleep before I pour a whole bottle of Benedryl down his precious little throat. Maybe all that sugar wasn’t such a good idea.
6:30 a.m. Second day….Good morning Nana and Papa, I’m awake…….can I play on the Ipad? Yes, you can do anything if I can just go back to sleep….
7:00 a..m. When are we going rock climbing Nana? They don’t open until 10 Jaden, go play video games or watch a movie. How many days do we have left of this wonderful bonding time we are having? If I hear Angry Birds one more time this morning, I am going to throw the iphone out the window (oops, did I just say that?)
1:00 p.m. Got his second In and Out Burger for lunch. That’s all he wants. Am gagging at the thought of another burger…but after all, this is his summer vacation. so will force one down my throat.
2:00 Showtime, am headed to see Captain American…now here we go, this is what I’m talking about…..sightseeing at the Americana, movies and fun….”what? Oh, ok, Jaden, rock climbing wore him out, so could we just go home and he could play on the computer” Well, I guess that’s ok, after all, I do want my sweet little grandson to be enjoying himself”.
4:00 We are anxiously awaiting Papa to come home. I am going to tell Randy that it’s his turn to entertain this little darling for a while. I’m Angry Birded out and the sounds of aliens and army guys blasting away at each other has already got me deaf……man, I wish Jaden were staying longer than 8 days. The time is going so fast…..will update you tomorrow if we are out buying a ticket to send him home early or not…….

Just so you know that I’m not the only one in the family that has funny fiascos, this story was just sent to me by my precious cousin, Marion who lives in Miami. She shared this story with me and gave me permission to use it here. It will bring a smile to your face when you read it. I told her to stick with teaching art and get out of the kitchen before it’s too late…..so here it is: (Cora, this should make you feel better about your cupcake caper)
Steven told me that when we traveled to the Carolinas on vacation his family would prepare many home-made, southern meals for us we would have difficulty eating everything. However, not one home cooked meal was cooked for us the entire month of July except for the meatless, Texas chilli I cooked for Steven’s vegetarian sister in North Carolina. Needless to say, I’ve been in a cooking mood ever since we returned from vacation. Two days ago I cooked fried pork chops, collard greens (from my “Shrimp, Collards & Grits cookbook I found in Savannah), corn-on-th-cob, and risotto w/mushrooms & golden raisins. Ummmmmmmmm Good!!!! The collards were amazing so today, I found a great recipe for buttermilk pie in the same Savannah cookbook. I bought the ingredients and everything was going fine as I carefully measured and prepared the ingredients exactly as the recipe instructed. The 9″ pie plates with uncooked pie crusts were also prepared just as the recipe stated.

As I poured the pre-tasted, delicious pie filling in the 9″ pie shells I thought that they looked really full, but who am I to question Ervena Faulkner, a retired educator, a popular columnist for the Beaufort Gazette and a published cook? Her recipe says to pour the filling into unbaked pie crust in 9” pie plates so that’s what I did. Then I put the excessively filled pie shells in the pre-heated oven anticipating the sweet, succulent flavor my home made, Low Country Buttermilk Pies.

No more than 5 minutes later the kitchen, the dinning room, the living room, the bedrooms, the entire house was filled with smoke billowing from the oven and everything in the house instantly absorbed the burnt buttermilk oder. I threw open the oven door to discover that both pies had overflowed and my sweet, pungent pie filling was burning into a large, black crisp on the bottom of my oven. I turned off the oven and tried to rescue my pies, but the smoke attacked my eyes as I grabbed the pies and I spilled even more filling on the oven door, the kitchen floor and counters. I opened the sliding glass doors, turned all the ceiling fans on high and soaked the furniture and air with an entire can of Febreeze. Then I cleaned up as much of the spilled filling as possible.

I had been preparing lunch as my pies began to cook, but we were forced to eat our lunch on the patio in the rain to escape the smoke and fumes. After lunch, Steven scraped as much of the crispy pie filling from the oven as possible, then I shut the oven door and set the knob to “self clean”. Thank goodness for modern technology! I hurried around the house closing the interior doors to prevent the smoke from contaminating the air in our bedrooms.

Eventually when the oven is clean again, I will put my pies back in the oven to finish cooking, but I worry about their success after the cooking process was interrupted and the sweet, creamy filling will probably taste like burnt charcoal. What a fiasco!! When I closed all the interior doors in the house, I didn’t I know that my bedroom door locked. Steven tried to coax the lock open for 20 minutes with no success. Not only is my pie episode a complete disaster, I have no idea when I’ll be able to re-enter my bedroom and bathroom. The last time I saw the key to that door was in 1979 when I bought the house 32 years ago. Please….that key is long gone!

Here I sit with all the windows and doors open while the air conditioner runs full blast and my electric bill triples with no buttermilk pies. Next time I get the urge to make a home-made pie I’ll just go to the grocery store and buy one like I usually do.

I just had to share this idea with you. Yesterday at church, I was visiting with a friend and asking her if she got moved into their new place. She told me that yes, they had moved and that several of the ladies from our class had come over and helped her line her shelves and got her kitchen all put together. I stood there and thought about that and how nice that was for people to still go over to help a friend get settled. But, as I was thinking about how I should have thought about going over to help, she began to tell me what they did. Instead of buying the normal shelf paper which can get pretty expensive if you have lots of kitchen cabinets, she had gone and bought a box of the cheapest linolium flooring to use. The box of flooring cost her $6.00 and it was enough to cover all of her shelves. They just cut each sq to fit the cabinets and she now has shelving that she can wipe down and it really dressed up the inside of her dark cabinets. Had never even thought about doing that. So there you go, a new idea that would save you money and so easy to use. Also, I am so excited that we are having FRESH fried okra tonight. My grocery store had beautiful baby fresh okra so am frying some along with potatoes, fresh cut tomatoes, fresh green beans and squash….a perfect veggie meal tonight. When there are so many wonderful veggies to munch on, we don’t even miss having meat. We are trying to eat “meatless meals” Monday through Thursday nights so we can splurge alittle more on the weekends. Since there are so many car shows around the area over the weekends, there always seems to be people selling grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, so we don’t feel so bad when we allow ourselves to eat those delicious grilled hamburgers over the weekend. This weekend, we have two outdoor concerts to attend, one Saturday night and one Sunday night with our Sunday School class, so I know we will be really chowing down at the outdoor dinners. Am already counting down until Saturday night…great weather, concert music in the park and a dinner eaten out side…..ah…..what a weekend!