My oldest daughter, husband and their oldest son and family are headed this way for a few days. I'm really looking forward to some good times...albeit rather loud with the young ones around. But that's OK, greatgrandpa will manage just fine. Now for the kicker. My second oldest lives in central Illinois and sent me an email the day after Father's Day, wishing me a belated Happy Pappy day and telling me she was sending a package which should be here Thursday(yesterday). So, last night my wife and I stepped out for a quick drive through burger and she called while we were out, asking if I had seen the package yet. No....so I was instructed to get home so I'd be there when it was delivered. She knows the UPS guy comes late in the afternoon here. So we headed home, only a couple miles at best. I pulled in the drive next to my local granddaughter's car and she's in the front yard playing with her little son...one of my great grandkids. Her mother is the one telling me to get home to see the package when it arrives. I thought nothing of it...the granddaughter in the yard, happened often before. We went inside and I'm horsing(rough housing) around with the little guy and my wife comes around the corner of the kitchen and asked me to come check something out for her. I walked around the corner and there stood my second oldest daughter which I hadn't seen in about two years. Her daughter, the one that was in the front yard, had picked her up at the airport and delivered the "package." She and my oldest had pulled off the biggest surprise I've had in years, she had bought the ticket over a month ago when her sister said they were coming for a vacation so they thought it would be neat to pull a trick on dad. Later we got on the 'puter webcams and they got a good laugh over my reaction to the whole thing. To top it off, my surprise "package" also brought a small suitcase of old slides, photo albums, and piles of old pictures that had belonged to my parents and my sister....all who have passed away so my brother-in-law gave them to my daughters. What a time I've had looking at pictures taken of relatives and such, many I've not seen in ages. There were also tons of pics taken when I was a little kid in the mid to early 40's. I sure was cute back then....wonder what happened.
When the girls are together...one from Green Bay couldn't make it, it's noisy. My wife just spends her day watching and laughing at it all, telling me our home must have been something when the girls were growing up...it's so lively when they're all together. With her health issues, they watch and care for her like a bunch of mother hens, won't let her do anything extra. She's not their mother, but they treat her as though she is and love her dearly. I'm glad, it's important to me as well.
Life is good. I've been a bit depressed because there will be no travel on the bike this summer, this has lifted this old man's spirits substantially.
