Too Quiet – From Guest Blogger, Grandpa Bob

Our house is deathly quiet, almost too quiet.

Two hours ago our two sons, Don and Jeff, along with Zachary and Ezra, hopped into Don’s rental car and zipped off to the Reno airport to catch their flights home.  Jeff and his boys had come to California for a wedding, and his brother Don met us here in Lake Tahoe (elevation 6300′) five days later.  While they were here, our house was a regular beehive of activity, and a pretty noisy one at that.

Indoor games were ongoing from before breakfast until after dinner.  In alphabetical order, as best I can remember, there was Aggravation, Checkers, Chess, Hearts and UNO. Please don’t think these were the typical ‘take it easy and let the little kids win’ types of contests.  Oh no, far from it.  This was serious competition, fought to the bitter end with much trash talking.  For example, when I finished last in a hotly contested game of Hearts, Zach and Ezra thought that was hilarious.  Not to be outdone, I told the boys in my most fearsome voice that I would surely get revenge on them the next time we played.  For some reason this didn’t intimidate them in the least.  Instead, more laughter.

I hadn’t known that both Zach and Ezra are soccer fanatics.  Each time the U.S. women’s team played a match at the World Cup in Germany, the boys were plopped on the couch cheering on our team.  Once the game was over, they dashed outside to compete on our front lawn, complete with improvised goal posts.  Needless to say, the competition was intense and there were more than a few disputes about fouls, goals, offsides, etc.

There was frisbee golf at a local park and daily walks around the neighborhood.  There was a hike to the waterfall above Emerald Bay (spectacular), and we were up at 5 am to fish at Sawmill Pond.  With only a few minutes remaining in our allotted two-hour fishing time, Zach landed the catch of the day, a 17-1/2 inch rainbow trout, and promptly went bonkers (see below).  Hard to imagine a happier kid.  Grandpa (that’s me) cleaned the fish as soon as we returned home and Grandma pan-fried it for breakfast.

So, were the eight days here all play and no work for the boys?  No way! Even while in Napa for the wedding, Zach and Ezra has assignments to do, and that continued when we returned to Tahoe.  Incidentally, Don’s two children were also homeschooled by their mother, in their case through the sixth grade.  Their son, Kurt, will be a senior in college and their daughter, Claire, will be a senior in high school.  Seemed to work well for them.

Anyway, all is quiet in the house and Grandma and Grandpa are once again empty nesters.  But we had a great time while the ‘fearsome foursome’ were here, and we thank our daughters-in-law for ‘loaning’ us a part of their families for a short time.