We had some of the family over tonight for a summer/birthday-get-together. Michele had a birthday recently, so she baked an alluring brownie cake for those who wished to wish her well.
We also had brats and pasta salad and fruit salad and.....
It was very pleasant, with the usual familial eccentricities (isn't that a contradiction?).
Some of us sat on the upper deck and watched the hummers and downies and hairies and gray birds darting about.
Some of us sat inside, with the air conditioning, and enjoyed young children and the ball game.
As dark was coming, I went down to the lower level to let the dogs out. Michaela and Carrie, my young granddaughters, came clomping down the stairs in their flip-flops to join me. It was wonderful. I sat on the lower deck and sipped a beer while they scooted about the back yard, gently pulling lightning-bugs out of the air. I am not kidding. These little kids brought the bugs back to me to put in a jar.
I never did that as a kid, and I was an outdoorsy type.
Then they told me about picking up a toad in the dark, and carrying it to the garden, where it would eat bad bugs.
So I sipped my beer and watched my impressively well-adjusted granddaughters pursuing more lightning bugs, and I looked out a little further to see our eager Jack Russells digging for something or other, and I saw the comradeship of the two different species.
So, how was your day, and what did you learn?
We also had brats and pasta salad and fruit salad and.....
It was very pleasant, with the usual familial eccentricities (isn't that a contradiction?).
Some of us sat on the upper deck and watched the hummers and downies and hairies and gray birds darting about.
Some of us sat inside, with the air conditioning, and enjoyed young children and the ball game.
As dark was coming, I went down to the lower level to let the dogs out. Michaela and Carrie, my young granddaughters, came clomping down the stairs in their flip-flops to join me. It was wonderful. I sat on the lower deck and sipped a beer while they scooted about the back yard, gently pulling lightning-bugs out of the air. I am not kidding. These little kids brought the bugs back to me to put in a jar.
I never did that as a kid, and I was an outdoorsy type.
Then they told me about picking up a toad in the dark, and carrying it to the garden, where it would eat bad bugs.
So I sipped my beer and watched my impressively well-adjusted granddaughters pursuing more lightning bugs, and I looked out a little further to see our eager Jack Russells digging for something or other, and I saw the comradeship of the two different species.
So, how was your day, and what did you learn?
By 
Very good. Well done Don you seem to have captured it exactly!
(I was never a bug kid, but admire the kids that are)
Thanks for the kind words, Midge. We grandparents look at life from a different angle, don't we?