The Youngest Turns Twenty Seven

Yesterday was our youngest child's 27th birthday. She told me she was getting old. I responded, "You're the youngest we have and if you are old what does that make us?" She told me she didn't dare say. Kendra and Craig live in Algonquin, Illinois and that is quite a hike from here. Takes us two hours if the traffic is light, takes us four hours during rush hour. We called Kendra to wish her a happy birthday and learned they had celebrated on Saturday night and were free on her birthday. "You gonna come, Mom?" A quick question to her dad and we had spontaniously decided to drive there to share her birthday. So off we went. Two hours later, we arrived. The usual comment about how long the trip had taken was made. "You made good time". Sundays make for good travel times. It was nearly lunch time and Craig had planned a simple and sweet picnic lunch. Shortly after we arrived, the sky began getting very dark in the north west. It was obvious, Craig was surveying the weather situation every few moments. Finally, the clouds opened up and the rain came down in sheets as the wind picked up speed.. Craig wasn't daunted, he said we would have an indoor picnic. We had ham and pastromi sandwiches, some healthy crackers, fresh raspberries and sparkling juice in stemware. For dessert, Craig brought out a container of fancy chocolate covered fruit. They were very colorful in reds, orange, blues, and white which made them all the more tempting. He had purchased the sweet delicacies at Trader Joe's so I knew instantly that was something we would want to take home for ourselves. Trader Joe's has a location about two blocks from their home so each time we visit them we visit Joe, too.

Kendra told us they had a new game which Mom would like. Dad asked if it was Scrabble and she laughed and said it was a spin off. Since Mom loves Scrabble, I was ready to learn a spin off. It is called Snatch. One uses the letters from the Scrabble game which are laid face down on the table. In turn, each player turns over a letter. As soon as a word is visible, one yells out the word and takes those letters and forms the word on the table in front of him. Then if a letter comes up that can change that original word, anyone can yell out that word, take the word from it's original maker and form the new word in front of him. Kendra whipped me the first game. I realized that my Scrabble skills needed to be enlarged to include the ability to look for ways to change the words already formed. By the last game, I whopped Kendra. She wasn't too thrilled but we all had a great time trying to out do the next player. My husband doesn't like word games but he was gracious and played a long inspite of his dislike. He would do much better if it were a math game.

We arrived home around eight oclock and I was done in. Knowing I had to go to work in the morning, I went to bed early. So here I am, it's morning and I'm at work, everything is very quiet as no students are here today. The only noises I hear are the hum of the computer and the dripping of water. We have a refrigerator in our room and I have the door open to defrost the freezer which is mostly ice at this point. Soon, I will have to go to our first meeting of the day. By three fifteen today, the school year of 2006-2007 will be history.