Past Week

I had such a good time with my daughter L, and grandson. R is 11 years old, and owns 5 game systems, and of course spends a good deal of time playing video games. He had the best time here. We have a PlayStation 2, and he brought his WI and I have a Nintendo DS. He spent very little time with any of them. We even rented 3 new games for him. We went to Roan Mountain State Park, and he loved it. The weather was perfect for being outside in the mountains. We went on the Appalachian Trail, for about 10 minutes, while I told him some things about it, and now he can say he's been on part of it. And we talked to a couple of hikers and gave them a box of PopTarts. It's always a good idea to feed AT hikers, can you imagine how many calories they use a day? Then he stood with one foot in North Carolina, and one in Tennessee, and thought that was pretty cool. He hung out with me and his mom, and listened to family stories and history. At one point I realized there were four generations sitting in the living room talking together. Pat, L, R, and I played....BOARD games! I thought he would not be interested in that, but he found some, Outburst and a Monopoly game that was a Virginia State Parks theme, and wanted to play. We played both for hours. Oh yeah, I guess I should mention, he won Monopoly by about a gazillion dollars. He's very intelligent, and sat and told us all kinds of Virginia history. He lives in Newport News, which is by Norfolk and Williamsburg. His school class went on lots of field trips and taught them so much history! This is his first year there, after moving from Phoenix. I learned a lot! In the evenings, we made a fire in our little fire pit, and sat outside under the stars watching the lightening bugs and talking. It was so nice. I miss all my kids and grandkids so much.