Round-Up! =)

How do I pull all of this together?   Last time I posted any detail, we were heading over to the hotspot at the grocery store across the street from Grandma’s house, so I couldn’t really finish writing anything much. 

While we’re on the topic of that grocery store, though, let me just tell you about it.  I don’t know if any of ya’ll have ever been in a Wegman’s or if it’s strictly a NY thing, but that store is the BOMB!  I gave KC the grand tour on Friday night when we went to get food to cook for Grandma’s birthday supper.  He was impressed, and it’s tough to impress him!  *GRIN*  I may have mentioned it before when I was up here a few months ago, but the place has EVERYTHING, AND pretty reasonable pricing.  I’ve never been in a grocery store that had a coffee shop, a ginormous cafe, sub shop, giant bakery, sushi bar, fresh food market, deli, candy shop, pharmacy, AND free daycare service right inside the front door so you can shop in peace.  Amazing!  Of course, our kids weren’t with us, so we got to shop in peace anyway, but it’s a genius idea!  

Also on Friday, while we were out shopping, we were also seeking an inexpensive (and convenient) way to modify the bed we were sleeping in at Grandma’s (I’m pretty sure it was the bed that belonged to my GREAT Grandma).  My first thought was to just grab one of those foam eggshell things and a couple of pillows.  We had to have something that we could easily get back on the plane with though, or else inexpensive enough to just leave at Grandma’s.   We quickly found out that foam tops for mattresses are not small enough to fit in the suitcase OR inexpensive enough for 2 nights use.  Pillows were easy, $5 each is definitely worth 2 nights of comfort and we just left them there, but the mattress problem was a little more challenging.  And in the interest of full disclosure, I’m sure the mattress and pillows were fine for most people, we are just totally used to NON-firm mattresses and memory foam pillows, so when you sleep on a mattress that is approximately equal in firmness to say….the floor ;o) and the pillows are feather and disappear when you lay your head on them….well, we just needed to make adjustments in order to actually get some sleep.  LOL. 

Our final solution was an air mattress on sale at Wally World for $20, and we just stacked it right on top of the other bed.  The next two nights we slept like logs.  Still didn’t compare to getting back home and in our OWN bed, but it worked.  =) 

Let’s see.  Grandma.  Boy howdy, she was grouchy with us on Saturday.  I think her medication makes her a little out of it, but she still comes up with some spunk every now and then.  Dad told her to let me trim her beard at breakfast one morning and she got all huffy and said, “Well, did you have to tell everybody about it?”  She was laughing about it though and dad told her if she didn’t let me do it, she’d have to join the circus as the bearded lady.  LOL!  When I came out with the scissors after breakfast, she told me she’d rather pluck them herself, later.  I was like, no way, Grandma, there’s too many and it would hurt, I’m just gonna trim them off for you, now stop talking and be still so I don’t poke you with the scissors.  “Yes, mother, you’re awful bossy!” She said.  I bought some dry shampoo to wash and fix her hair on Saturday, too, but I didn’t catch her at the right time for that one, I guess, because she wouldn’t let me do it.  I decided to just let that one slide.  Oh well.  I did comb her hair both mornings when I was helping her in the bathroom, though.  That was kinda funny, too, because when she looked in the mirror, she did a double take (both mornings) like she didn’t recognize herself.  “Who’s that old woman?” she asked…same thing both mornings.  One thing about a faulty memory, everything is fresh every day. 

Saturday morning, after breakfast, Nate stayed with Grandma and Dad, KC, and I went out with KC’s phone GPS and spent all morning exploring downtown Rochester and finding some different thrift stores.  Didn’t really buy a whole lot, but we did take a nice hike through an ancient and HUGE graveyard!  Found some famous people’s graves…like Susan B Anthony.  KC was kinda disappointed, and I understood his confusion, because you have these graves of very famous people, and they are like very non-descript…and then 10 feet from it, you have this giant monument and statue for some unknown John Brown and you’re like, really?  There was lots of photo ops walking through the cemetery though…the leaves are in their peak up there and some of the graves were interesting.  I love stuff like that. 

I also got lots of pics while we were driving, too…I will probably put some of them on my photography page or on facebook maybe. 

I took some where around 180 pictures on the trip.  That was fun…a good bit of them turned out pretty decent, too.  One thing that was challenging was




having to use my 50mm fixed lens the entire time.  It’s a great lens, but it’s inconvenient at times when you’re trying to get wide angle shots.  Hey, I love a challenge, though, and I was pretty happy with the results, overall. 
 
Saturday afternoon, when we got back to Grandma’s, we did a little cleaning for her (washed the front windows, swept, vacuumed, mopped, bleached the sink, wiped down the counters and cabinets, cleaned off the tables and washed them, etc) and then watched musicals with her until everybody started getting there for her party. 

Nate cooked boneless ribs and fish…awesomeness.  He makes me sick sometimes…lol…but then, that’s how it’s been as long as I can remember.  Way back in the day when I would burn a pot of water and he would throw together something random and it would taste great, I would despair of ever fixing anything edible…whoa…I’m off topic. 

Anyway.  We sang to her twice.  I forgot candles, so we just lit one large one of hers and she blew it out.  I think she was tickled that we were all there and did something for her like that because she seemed more like her old self than she had been. 

Here’s a few more of the pics:



Well, it was finally time to head home.  We had to get up at 3:55am on Sunday morning to get to the airport and return the rental car in time to catch our flight at 6:50.  I have to say this about AirTran, they are PROMPT.  We had absolutely NO delays, and I think every single one of the flights was ahead of schedule…I’ve only flown a few times, but that’s the first time we’ve ever had that smooth of a trip. 

Now security in the little Rochester airport was another story.  I have to pause here and mention that I accidentally left a seam ripper in a forgotten pocket on my personal bag and found it in NY when I was trying to stuff all the stuff we were taking home back in the bags.  A SEAM RIPPER is like a deadly weapon…I can NOT believe I got it through Charlotte…that’s an INTERNATIONAL airport…hello!  Nobody said a word.  Well, I decided to leave it at Grandma’s so I wouldn’t take the chance of getting pulled at security flying home. 

We check in at the airport at 5am and I figure security will be a breeze…we’re not carrying anything dangerous and we made it through Charlotte with no problem, so no big deal.  All three of us ended up in different lines, but it’s okay, no sweat, shoes off, pockets emptied, jackets off, drop all my bags on the belt and send them through and go down to wait on my bags. 

Patiently waiting and then all of a sudden the guy pulls it off the belt and says, “Who’s bag is this?  Come with me!”  OH MY heavens.  So he opens it up and starts pulling everything out…”you have something dark in here,” he says.  HUH?  Keep in mind that coming home I have everything rolled as tightly as possible in order to fit everything we bought back into our luggage so it’s not just thrown in there and it’s almost impossible to put back that way in less than 30 seconds, so I’m kinda freaking out.  He pulls out my bag of gourmet coffee and then runs my bag through again.  Nope, pulled again.  This time he pulls out the library book I had finished and stowed out of the way in the bottom.  Okay, now I’m good and I have a pile of stuff and a half empty bag that I have to get it all stuffed back into…so they caught me…smuggling coffee and books.  Woohoo.  The funny thing is that KC went through with no prob and turned around to find me and Nate and we had BOTH gotten pulled to dig through our bags.  Nate had a suspicious looking camera lens.  ROFL!  So we got through security at the international airport with sharp objects and no problems and then at the non-international airport, we flag security with our coffee, books, and camera.  Okay then.  Glad I left that sharp seam ripper back at Grandma’s. 

To sum it all up, it was a fun trip, I was glad to see Grandma and spend some time with her, and flying was exciting, but I’m sure glad to be home!