We have been back from Croatia for 20 days now, flowers planted and potted, all caught up and I'm dreaming of getting on another long flight to somewhere! No I am not loony or anything like that - I just really like to travel!
Grandson Alex is now 11 and just graduated from 5th grade elementary and will start middle school in the fall. This week we had a grandkid sleepover and as we were eating breakfast he says "Grammy - the day after Memorial Day we had THE TALK". I do know what the "talk" is for that age so I just said "That's good" so as not to bring up any questions. Yes I'm a bit of a chicken!
Chris and Alex look so much alike that sometimes I call Alex Chris even though Chris is 42 years old!
I wear this everywhere and it's an important moment in my life - among many others of course and this was me and Alex when he was one day old on April 16, 2005.
So the sleepover night - after a day of rain the night turned beautiful and I was able to bike with the kids to Bush Lake Beach and wouldn't you know they had the rafts at the shore ready to set out in the lake. It was very hard to resist the small jump to play on the quiet raft with not a soul around. Lucy loves handstands, dancing, singing and gymnastics. She also slipped just a little into the water up to just below her knees - oops!
As we arrived at the lake on our bikes Alex looks at me and says "Grammy I have a really good life". It nearly brought tears to my eyes thinking of the trials and tribulations along the way leading to IVF and the perfect kids being born, and a brain tumor for his mom when he was only 4 years old. God is good!
The latest rage is the kids keep wanting cooking lessons and this day it was pancake art using of course my homemade recipe that is probably 50 years old!
For the first time since she died in 2001 I visited the gravesite of a best friend of mine who lost her battle with cancer. They lives across the street from us, our oldest were born on the same day in the same hospital and hers was a surprise pregnancy as they had an adopted son who was 8 year old and had been married many years. She taught me about life, raising kids, canning, gardening, cooking, patience and finding the best deals at garage sales and took care of my kids while I took college classes. Without her I would not be the person I am today. She died in the hospital where I was working and someone there called me at 5am to tell me it had happened so I wouldn't go to her room and find her not there.
So - back to Croatia which we loved and highly recommend as a wonderful and inexpensive trip.
It is the cleanest place I have seen, everyone is environmentally conscious and they have some of the cleanest sea and river water in the world. There are no big industries to pollute the air but of course that means the unemployment rate is high and the salaries are low. Tourism is the main industry.
We saw laundry hanging out everywhere.
The other side is there is a very high rate of smoking. This guy was selling some of the best sea salt in the world - naturally harvested and of course the seller had a cigarette.
I still don't understand the big fuss in the USA over the gender specific bathrooms. What the hell????? This combo is all over Europe and the world and no problem!
No fancy reservation book at this restaurant. Wine corks, a wooden bbq skewer, a clothespin and a small piece of paper to find our table and note the next couple was due in about 4 hours.
In our apartment in Zagreb. I so wanted to look in the emergency cases but I held back. We did recognize the fire extinguisher - pretty clear when it says "firestop"!
I still need to do one more post on Croatia and move on but it's good night for me! Ross is having cataract surgery in two days and that will take up a bit of time I am sure.
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