Musings of a minor megalomaniac
Grandma Shaffer flew in Tuesday for Francie’s graduation. We got lucky with the recently unsettled weather and had a nice day Wednesday for a little sightseeing up in the mountains. We did lunch at a little burger joint in Estes then spent a couple hours touring the National Park.
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The big thing this year will be Francie graduating from high school. Here is a link to all her grad pics and my favorite:
I’m also close to complete posting a now total of 4 pages worth of photos (>300) collected from Mom’s camera during her visits over the years. Check back again soon to see the rest of them…
Club tournament volleyball play starts this month and we are still hopeful the right college coach will discover a new star player for their team.
Phoebe is looking for a new job, and Michelle is doing the Redneck thing.
Best wishes to everyone in 2017!
…it’s freakin’ awesome. Honolulu is too crowded and the traffic is horrible. But no complaints other than that. Hotel is amazing – even nicer than what I’d heard. I’m sitting at the beach bar sipping a diet Pepsi while Phoebe irradiates herself. Michelle and Francie are somewhere on the other side of Pearl swimming with dolphins. Nice:
We have a buttload of pics I’ll be processing into the Photo Album, as time permits.
The CO Shaffer Xmas tradition has settled into a fairly low-key affair, now that the girls are teenagers. No more clandestine wrapping sessions in the basement followed with early morning chaos supervised by exhausted parents. We still do a modicum of gift exchange under the tree and make minor updates to our small front porch and yard light display. But most of the money was already spent via spending card transfers to the girls funding shopping sprees days and weeks ago.
Last night we discovered the mother of all outdoor holiday lighting displays on lookout ridge just east of Boulder. Our tradition now entails an evening touring the local lighting displays followed by an excellent baked ham feast the next day (today), courtesy Michelle’s culinary competence.
That’s just perfect for me!
Things are looking pretty good, with the exception of just a couple concerns. Phoebe continues to run with a bad gang, but thinking back, no different than me at that age. Francie has been complaining of back pain from a years-old trampoline injury aggravated now by serving the volleyball. We’ll see what the doctor has to say Friday. I’m starting to get accustomed to living with chronic pain and associated sleep loss from arthritis. Michelle is probably the only one with nothing significant to worry about.
I suppose we’ll say cautious optimism is called for. Yay. I think.
Took Phoebe to a Rockies game yesterday. Thought it might get rained out, but fortunately just another typical fast-moving thunderstorm we see here regularly all summer long. Also met up with most of the Lockheed gang I work with for a little offsite unwind. Of course the Rocks lost, but it was fun playing the RBI game and Phoebe got to meet some of my new work friends. All in all a great time with daughter #1, becoming fewer and farther apart all the time.
Barbara came to visit for a week over Francie’s birthday this year. She seems to be doing well, same as ever.