Sunday, November 12, 2017

Grandsons, travel and good books

I certainly did not mean to let a month go by without a blog post, and I always refrain from saying, "I've been so busy." I'll just say there have been other pressing matters.

Wife and I just returned from seeing Grandson #2 (from henceforth, I'll refer to them as GS1 for the first grandson born, and GS2 for the second one. I started this code language when I started this blog in 2008 and it's not like I'm protecting my identity or anything  . . . but I gave everyone names from the start, so I'll continue with it).

GS2 is one month old and is doing great. Older Son and DIL are learning the ropes and Wife and I had a delightful time with them. This was my first visit since he was born, but Wife made another one in the interim, staying with DIL a few days while Older Son was traveling. She did the same thing last week, going on Wednesday, and I joined her for the weekend. Older Son went to the Auburn game yesterday so we spent the day with DIL and GS2.

GS1 is four months old and doing splendidly also. Daughter went back to work a few weeks ago and is still adjusting but is doing well.

So far, I'm enjoying the GrandBob gig.

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Wife and I made a visit up to South Bend, IN to see Younger Son the last weekend in October. Having had a pretty warm October here, it was a bit of a shock to go there where the highs were in the 30s both days we were there. We were prepared, however, and took plenty of layers to wrap up in.

We went to a Notre Dame football game, which we thoroughly enjoyed. It's such a classic place, and it was really fun to experience a game day there. Younger Son was working, of course, but managed to spend all of the morning and the early afternoon w/ us. His experience this year has been much different than last, with ND having a winning season. Up until yesterday, when they experienced a nasty loss to the University of Miami, they seemed to be in the running for the college football playoffs. Those hopes were dashed, however, with this loss. Still, they have had a much better season than the last one.

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One thing I have made time for lately is reading. I seem to have hit on a bunch of page-turners recently. You might be surprised to learn that one of them is Hillary Clinton's "What Happened," her retrospective on the 2016 presidential election. When I heard about it, I put my name on the list at the library and was second on the list.

Besides being self-serving and the way she blames everyone but herself for her loss to Donald Trump, it is extremely interesting reading. If you are a political junkie and can look past her biases (and there are plenty, of course), I would commend this for your reading. If you don't want to risk supporting any cause related to Hillary, do what I did and get it at your local library.

As is my practice, I'll share my other favorites at the end of the year, but so far it's been a great year of reading in 2017.

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We will have a houseful for Thanksgiving next week. As usual, there will be staggered arrivals and departures, and for at least a couple of nights we'll have two babies in the house.

Wife and I are starting to get prepared and making those "go with the flow" speeches to ourselves.