It seems my three oldest grandchildren have my summer rather much mapped out for me this year. It is a good thing I hadn't made any specific plans of my own, or maybe not.
I had already promised to take the oldest five away for an overnight to a nearby theme park. By nearby I mean significantly closer than Disneyworld or any of the Six Flags locations. We will be doing that during the week following the fourth. That will be five young ones between the ages of ten and fifteen. I may need to spend time on the therapy couch after that trip.
It came to my attention last evening that I will also be going on a wilderness hike with the three oldest in early august. What they fail to understand is that this old man has never done any serious camping, and while I do enjoy the casual stroll, that is nothing like walking with a purpose with a pack strapped to your back. The way they have it all planned out we will be gone for almost two weeks. We may just have to amend the itinerary a tad to accomodate the old man. I am not too sure about taking that particular adventure, but I am a sucker for the kids and they know it. We'll see how that all turns out.
In between these activities are the scheduled trips to the shore, usually two or three day events, with the lot of them including the three year old princess. On these trips I will not be alone with them as at least one of the girls will be along each time to keep us in line. There will be at least three of these outings, with at least one to include the entire clan hopelfully.
And then I have promised to take Nathaniel into either Philadelphia or New York City over Labor Day. We haven't decided for sure at this point. We had better get that finalized so we can make specific arrangements.
I had no idea that my retirement was going to be quite this busy.
