Just plain Frozen.

The burgers and swim party had to be postponed due to thunderstorms and rain in the area.  We will try again tomorrow.  Instead, we gathered at the land-based house and watched the movie Frozen for the evening’s entertainment.  A cute and fun story that showed me the play the other day had all the essential elements included from the movie.  Made me appreciate the effort put forth by our granddaughter even more as we realized Princess Anna is one of the main characters in the movie.

We also found out that the next play will be based upon the Despicable Me movies.  The part our granddaughter is rehearsing for now is one of the minions, in fact, the head minion in the movie.  There are less speaking lines but more action and a couple of songs that she has the lead singing part.  This will be interesting to say the least.  I cannot wait but more on that later after the big day arrives.

Wednesday has more rain and thunderstorms so the burgers and swimming have been postponed for yet another day, much to the dismay of the budding actress.  Gran and Bibi were summoned this morning by mama to help with taxi duty.  All three grandchildren had dentist appointments this morning and two had to be fed and carried to camp afterward in locations thirty miles apart.  Due to the timing, mama would not be able to get both to camp on time without some grandparent help.

We volunteered to meet her at the dentist office and retrieve one of the campers, feed him and get him to camp on time.  Mission accomplished but not without some interesting moments for Bibi.  While he was eating in the back seat of the car as we traveled, he calmly announces there is a lizard in the car.  Bibi is immediately struck with the thought; ‘this thing might make a move for my leg if I am not watchful.’  The rest of the trip to camp was interspersed with Bibi's questions about where is he now, has he moved, etc. etc.

I think our young camper was quite ready to head to camp by the time we arrived at our destination, since he was out the door and running inside before the car fully stopped rolling.  But he did not get away quick enough as he had to give one last update on the whereabouts of this lizard.  I took Bibi (and the lizard) back to the RV park so we could plan our strategy on how best to extract the unwelcome guest in the car.  I asked her if she wanted me to get him out and the response was I do not want him in the car any longer.

So a plan was devised using a stick, broom and towel as tools/weapons in the extraction process.  The back doors were opened, me on one side and Bibi on the other.  The lizard was located and prodded with the stick to make sure he was alive and well.  He did not appreciate the invasion of his space and immediately took off which left the extractors frantically following and chasing his movements with the broom and towel in an attempt to keep him from hiding under the seats.  Fearlessly, Bibi actually made the extraction as the lizard paused momentarily on the floor in front of her.  With a flick of the wrist, the towel made contact and the lizard found himself flying through the air only to land on his feet on the ground outside the car.  Mission accomplished!!!  …and Bibi is breathing normally once again.

As an aside, while we were traveling between dentist office, burger place and Melissa to deliver our camper, we noticed a school bus parked in a parking lot next to Chick-Fil-A.  Name of the school district prominently painted on the side of the bus: Paradise ISD.  Somehow, I think a survey of the students in that school district would dispute the name and show they are open to changing it.

We finally got to have a burger and swim party tonight.  The elements and the schedules finally aligned to create a perfect afternoon/evening to get together.  The only hitch was a faulty LP gas regulator for the portable grill.  It was locked into an open position and would not shut off the flow of gas.  Since the little bottles (unlike their bigger cousins) do not have a shutoff valve, then this situation makes grilling impossible as there is gas escaping from the moment a bottle is attached with no way of lighting or turning off the flow after it is lit nor adjusting the flow.  So a hunt began at Lowes, then Home Depot and finally threw in the towel at Academy to find a replacement for the portable grill.  These big box stores only carry the portable grills as a unit with no parts but have plenty of parts for the bigger cousins.  Guess we will research online to find a replacement part. 

To cook the burgers, two of us loaded up and went to the land-based home and used the bigger cousin to cook the meat.  After they were cooked, we loaded back up and returned to the motorhome to enjoy the (finally cooked) burgers.  We also enjoyed celebrating with the son-in-law his 40^th birthday.  He really does not look a day over 40.  We enjoyed a good time sitting outside, visiting and watching the Rangers lose another game.  This is the first time in a long-time they did not have any activities to prevent them from enjoying each other and the visit.  But it is short lived as tomorrow; we will attend another matinee presentation and then make our way to the baseball diamond that evening for the start of the younger grandson’s regional tournament.  More on this later, until then be safe and adventurous.

Frozen Baseball?

This excursion is all about the grandkids.  Our first stop is the theatrical debut of our granddaughter.  She is attending drama camp this summer and seems to be flourishing in the environment.  She came home from the first day and announced to mama she is one of the lead characters in a play based upon the recent Disney film, Frozen. 

Proud mama texted us to let us know what was happening along with the statement, “Oh my, there are a lot of lines to learn by Friday.”  The camp is for one week and the kids are assigned their parts, they practice and then present their performance all in the space of one week

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We and the other proud family members attended the 3 PM matinee performance, the only time this particular cast and venue will be presenting Frozen.  And there she was, our granddaughter in the part of Anna, the frozen princess, all dressed in white and quite beautiful.  Now my ears are not what they used to be so I could not hear all the dialogue but could tell she had practiced her lines faithfully and knew when to speak and when not to speak.

Princess Anna on the left, next to the strange carrot nosed character

For you see, part of her lines included silence while she was lying on the floor frozen.  Very important to remain still and silent during this time to provide the illusion you are frozen.  She nailed it!  She must have used me as her real life example to emulate for this particular part of the production.  Anyway, I did catch her line as she was unfrozen, it was ‘What happened?’  A very proud moment for Gran and Bibi.

Oh no!  Princess Anna is Frozen!

All thawed out and everyone is glad to see the Princess again.

I was greatly impressed with the performance and as a finale to the show, all the actors did an improvisational routine to the famous song in the movie.  I need to see this movie so I can find out what is going on because there are wolves and winds and all kinds of characters.  Of course, with my hearing issues I could not pick up on the story line other than the fact my princess Anna granddaughter was frozen then thawed out during the course of the story.

She did very well especially considering the amount of family that showed up to watch her performing for the very first time.  I think she might have been a tiny bit nervous but it did not show.  We found out she is attending a second iteration of drama camp this week.  We are all anticipating another rousing play this coming Friday.  As of this writing, we do not have character assignments.

A star is born - Or is that a HAM????

The second part of the trip involves the oldest grandson and baseball.  His All-Star team is competing in the Regional finals which are held in his hometown this year.  We are very thankful for that and also for the great weather.  It has not been too hot and humid, which is very unusual for the baseball games during this part of the year.  I was pleasantly surprised to see the fields in very good shape even though there have been a couple of mornings of rain.  By noontime the rain stops and then a gentle breeze dries out the ground so that by game time, there are no mud puddles to negotiate, either by the teams or by the fans.  Impressive!

He played Friday night and the team won.  He pitched the first three innings of scoreless ball (yep he did) and then moved to catcher.  By winning, the team received a Bye for the next round.  His three innings allows him to pitch every day.  If he pitches more than three innings, then he cannot pitch the next day.

Look the runner back to second base.

...and the delivery.  Another Strike - YAAAAAYYYY!!!!

In the second game, he started as pitcher again.  This time one run scored and his team led as he moved from pitcher to catcher once again after three innings.  This time, however, the pitchers behind him and the batters did not do as well as the first game because the team lost the lead and ended up losing the game 13 to 10.

In the next game, he started once again and was not quite as sharp as the previous two nights with two hits.  He still pitched well enough to keep the team in it, although as he left the mound after three innings their team was behind this time.  The team never got it together during this game and ended up losing thus being eliminated from the tournament finals.

I am very proud of him and his performance.  He had many good hits and a couple of innings where he was personally responsible for all three outs.  Example: two strikeouts and catching a pop up for the other out.  At the end of the tournament, he received an award for the Most Outstanding Pitcher during the tournament.

Holding his plaque for Most Outstanding Pitcher of the Tournament

Not to be outdone or forgotten, our other grandson will be participating in his regional tournament with his All-Star team this next weekend.  We will give a report later about him and his team’s efforts.  So there will be more to tell later.

Lucky for us, there is a RV park situated right in their hometown which is convenient to all these activities. We have stayed here often enough that the long-term residents and hosts recognize us now and accord us all the hospitality we could ask for.  Tonight at the RV park, we will be having home cooked hamburgers and relaxing while the kids swim in the pool after a very busy weekend full of activities.

Until the next posting, be safe and be well.