Party's Over

Do you remember how it felt when you were a kid at Christmas, your birthday party, or some really exciting, happy occasion? Do you remember how you felt when the presents were opened, your tummy full of all the food - and treats - you love most, and everyone has gone home? It's sort of a mixture of happy and sad - happy to see everyone and sad the party's over. That's were I am tonight.



We had a really good weekend beginning Friday evening and ending around 2 PM this afternoon when Judy left to drive back to Atlanta for her second week of class. I know she'll be happy to get back to Phoenix to her little family. At Thanksgiving the three of them will be here. We'll have all - absolutely all - of our gang together. Again I say, Harry and I are two lucky old farts. In Harry's words, we have a gold mine here. No money, but who needs it! We have the kids.


We ate; we laughed; we told about what we've been doing. Parents told the older kids about some of the cute things they said and did when they were little. Lots of laughs in that session. The grandsons broke out the bubble machine and had a romp in the yard following a small hail/rain storm on Saturday night. Their club house is under the contorted hazel tree. The bubbles don't show up very much (the bubble machine is the yellow thingie) but there were more bubbles than Lawrence Welk could have ever managed.

The girls played with Legos on Friday evening. Late on Saturday afternoon I went out to the screen porch to see what the girls were doing - would you believe it if I told you they were playing with Play Dough? Yep, it's true - they were happily talking about their babies, planning activities for Thanksgiving and playing with Play Dough.

This morning Judy did a little laundry, spent a bit of time talking with her Dad. He was telling her about life and the pile of sh*t you find in your path every once in a while. He explained that you can choose to go around it, step over it, or fall in the middle of it - you have to recognize it and make your own decision. Good advice but I haven't seen or heard of anyone in our gang facing this kind of decision. I think he was just passing on his philosophy of life. Judy's favorite food is Harry's version of grilled marinated steak and that's what he made for her late lunch before she had to leave. She called when she was back at her hotel in Atlanta getting ready for her last week of class.

That's pretty much the story of our big weekend. It probably sounds corny and boring to most of you but, believe me, the Hooper family had a wonderful, blessed weekend.

I'll try to catch up on visiting your blogs late tomorrow if not before. I've missed all of you and hope everyone is doing well.