South Hill Spring Break

As My Loving Spouse and I loaded up for a few days with The Number Ones, I felt like real ‘farmers’ as we brought them:

• 18 fresh eggs
• pound of bacon
• a ham
• a can of Spanish peanuts (not because we grow peanuts, but because My Loving Spouse accidentally bought them and no one here will eat them).  My mother was often known to give my family food they did not want and I was stuck trying to figure out what to do with it…just sharing the magic!
• A chalk board pig as a house-warming present
•  A cow book, just because…Number One Son, Number One Wife and THE Grandson just moved to their new house.  We came for a visit and to help put up a new fence.  Step one was a lot of brush/tree removal.  If there is anything this family has learned, it is to wear protective clothing when using chain saws.

We managed two trips to the dump, well not me actually, I managed to play with The Grandson, while everyone else managed two trips to the dump.  Day two was set to be a grand fence building extravaganza, but we all now live in the Northwest and on day two…it snowed.

Number One Wife and I did what any smart thinking quilters would do, we put THE Grandson down for a nap, left the men in charge and drove through the weather to the quilt store.  The Quilting Bee quilt store is my new favorite store in Spokane…oh, be still my heart!  They’ll service my machine, have a plethora of fabric, a children’s play place, sewing lessons and a man cave downstairs, oh, we will be back!

With the snow and rain stopped, there was time to explore the new neighborhood with a walk with THE Grandson to The Scoop.The neighborhood ice cream store.  What more could two doting Grandparents ask for?

A beautiful park?  Just a few puddles away from The Number One’s new house?

With a play structure…and acres of grass, trees and a pond…The Number One’s have moved to The South Hill in Spokane one of the prettiest places to live I have ever seen.  Wide streets, parks, sidewalks and people who care about their homes…this is an investment in the quality of their family life…and these Grandparents look forward to many trips to the park and The Scoop.  It didn’t just happen…The Number Ones paid a price.  In the last three years, they have been living in an area of town designated for ‘revitalization’, in other words…the city was hoping to ‘turn it around’.  The City would help with the mortgage, if the kids lived there for 3 years.  The kids bought a ‘fixer upper’ and fixed it up.  There were other houses on their street that were being ‘fixed up’ as well, but they were in the minority.  The neighborhood was what you might call…’sketchy’…and although they did their part by living there it was stressful.  They paid a price…

I believe, working hard to achieve one’s goal is one of the gifts we humans have been given.  This new home is all the sweeter for the work that went before it.

Believe me, we Grandparents are blessed.