Oklahoma

This summer my siblings, parents and I decided to go to Oklahoma to see Grandma Annie aka: Grandma Scrooge, who is in a nursing home now and terribly lonesome. Mom and Bob were smart and flew. The rest of us drove. Me, Shannon, Kristen and Mason in my car; Ryan and Lisa, Hannah, Grace and Madeline in Ryan's car leading the way. Rachael, Lori, Bella, Tony, Jack, Ben and Katya to follow the next day in Rachael's car. My brother said we could make the 16 hour drive with only 4 stops if we stayed focused and only stopped for gas. That didn't happen. Not even close. We stopped 9 times. Ridiculous, I know! By the time we made the long trip we were still on speaking terms! Be shocked.

We stopped first in Muskogee for 2 days to visit my dad's side of the family, or should I say the rednecks? Nothing wrong with rednecks, they just dress and talk a little funny. My redneck comes out once in awhile as badly as I try to suppress it. We went to see the fireworks at the local festival this weekend with my husbands family and it wasn't until we got there and I jumped out of the car that I realize I was totally barefoot. Soo embarrassing!

The two days in Muskogee went well, and then we were off to the city; only a two hour trip, that's nothing. Lori and I rode together with her two kids and Mason. My boy is not perfect, but he's still pretty easy to please. Lori's kids however, were a little more of a challenge. They hated being in the car... the result: three screaming kids for 30 minutes. Yikes! I was soo happy when they all fell asleep. We stopped to see Grandma at the home on the way, which was about 45 minutes from where we were staying. She was not expecting us. She was under the impression we were to come the week before, so she thought she'd been stood up. How sad! We convinced her to let us pick her up in the morning and bring her to the house we were staying at for the day, which is what we ended up doing each day. She's so stubborn, she never would have done something like that in the past. She must have been really lonely. We stayed at my cousins house while they were in Hawaii and watched their two little girls. There were 12 kids in the house during the day! Thank goodness they have a humongous house and all the kids got along well.

It was a long, stressful week with all the commotion but it was totally worth it for Grandma's sake. She had such a good time! She ate like a horse. She's on a puree diet and still managed to eat 4 pieces of pizza for dinner one night and three bowls of potato soup another night; ice cream, snacks and lots of pie in between. All she had to do was say something and we would all jump. She was treated like a queen. There were lots of memorable events but I'm going to leave that up to my sister to tell, because she's a better story teller than I am.

Grandma Annie is on hospice, but unlike MI, where hospice means you are expected to live at best, 6 mo, in Oklahoma it's more like 2 years. So pretty much any old lady might qualify for hospice. We all thought it might be the last time we see her, but she was doing so well, there might be next summer. I'll be flying!