The last Friday of summer vacation

That’s right, it’s over, school starts Monday and so comes the beginning of fall, leaves on the ground, the holiday season, hunting season, cold weather and football. Tonight we head over to the school for what they call the “ice cream social”. This is where the kids put all their supplies in their new classrooms and find out who their teachers are for the coming year. It then wraps up with free ice cream for each kid. We usually get in and out pretty quick. We’re sure hoping the oldest one gets his teacher of choice. As I said earlier, we think the little guy already knows who he will have.

Yesterday after some work in the morning, we called my Mom to see if she wanted to join us for lunch. We must have caught her just at the right time as she said yes! We drove out to Golden (home of Coors beer) and couldn’t find a parking spot in front of the little deli we were going to go to when Grandma suggested we all go to Table Mountain Inn. Now this is about the fanciest best place in all of Golden so we were thrilled to take her up on her invitation. My Mom and I both had enchilada’s and the boys had corn dogs and mac and cheese. It was all topped off with fried ice cream for the boys while my Mom and I split a piece of bourbon pecan pie, boy was it rich. We then drove home and decided to take a detour to drive through the old neighborhood where my Mom, Uncle T and Aunt B and I lived in her single days. The old neighborhood is still standing but a lot of the houses have been updated. I told her it was her version of “this is your life”. We then dropped her off, thanked her for buying us lunch when it was us who invited her, and headed home.

We quickly cleaned up the house a bit to prepare for Mom’s arrival from her day at work. She whipped up a quick dinner of leftovers that included some shrimp on brown rice and cantaloupe. She can do wonders with a few leftovers thankfully as you can’t let anything go to waste these days.

Being the super Mom that she is, she then loaded the boys up for a quick hour swim at the pool. I stayed home and watched the news and surfed around on the computer. Grandma Dixie called to see what we were all doing and I told her I was looking at farm land in Grand Junction to buy (actually for HER to buy) so she and Pa Don could come live in Colorado. The elevation is a lot lower there and the climate a bit better for growing things and is actually a nice community. I was of course joking but it’s fun to look, who knows, maybe one day she’ll want to get out of the cesspool called California!

Another bad day on the stock market. It seems that just like we’ve all been conditioned to bad things in our everyday lives, so has Wall Street. I don’t know if you remember or not but back in October 1989 (I think) when we had what they called Black Monday, the market dropped something like 500 or 600 points and everybody freaked out. Now it seems this happens every few days or so and we all take it in stride. I personally think that if people really knew what was going on, they’d all be pretty scared and be living their lives a little bit different. You see the World economy is like a house of cards and everyone is waiting to see which card falls first. It looks like Europe is in worse shape than us, (hard to believe) and the fall will begin over there, but like a house of cards it will all come tumbling down. We’re all too interconnected as a global economy and society that no one or nothing will be spared. I’m not sure what this will mean to you and I but it’s not going to be any better than it is now, rather quite the opposite. Hopefully it won’t be like the great depression in the late 1920’s but it very well could be. It should be noted that I’m not so concerned with all of this for the misses and I but for our kids. Imagine what life will be in 20 or 25 years! We should all be worried about the next generation, that’s what it’s all about. They don’t deserve what it looks like our generation will be leaving them. They deserve the same chance at prosperity and independence a we did. I’m not sure they way we’re going, that they’ll get that chance.

I’m headed to the gym and when I get back will ask the misses to write a few lines so we can all head into the weekend on an up note. So from me, take care and God Bless, hope you all are doing well.

Good morning. I am up and the dogs are wrestling with a new hand me down toy from Auntie B.  Tug of war is their favorite game and of course my fingers are crossed that the pups don’t knock anything over including me. The combined weight of our four legged friends is 205 pounds +….I hope neither dog lets go of the stuffed goose! They dogs are really fun to watch while they are engaged in their canine fun.

I am heading over to do the shot this morning and the I am off to Cherry Creek to have my hair done at 8:30.

The boys had a great time swimming last night and our oldest was really interested in watching one of the older boys from swim team during a diving lesson.  The older guy is on a school diving team, so he was practicing dives with flips and twists and whatever else his coach could throw at him.  After 45 minutes in the pool the youngest retired to the playground where his friends proceeded to bury him in the sand…needless to say showers with soap were mandatory when we arrived home.

Grandma Annette give me an update on Grandpa Jim.  I’ve been thinking and thinking about him and hoping all is well health wise. If he is putting together Ikea products that could be enough to raise your heart rate far beyond an acceptable level. You two should come to Colorado for a visit. We all would enjoy seeing you!!

I am off to shower and start the day. God Bless.

LF