As I’ve mentioned before, it takes a village, and thank God for mine. My village people are, among others, my family: Oma (the construction worker), Grammy (the cowboy), and Opa (the leatherman? I don’t know, this is getting weird. Did you know there was a leatherman in the Village People?). On Friday, Matty and Ryan (our nephew) had a shoot in Plymouth, so we figured we’d all head down to my parents’ Thursday for dinner and the kids and I would hang out with Oma & Opa on Friday. I think I let my mom know on a Tuesday, and my parents rallied the way they always do.

It was kind of rainy and then muggy out, so we did mostly inside stuff, but also raspberry picking in my parents’ backyard and then blueberry picking while taking my “brother”, Teddy, on a walk. George was like his namesake, George Costanza, but with raspberries instead of shrimp (#jerkstore). 

Hazy successfully lived up to her “MAKE TODAY AWESOME” t-shirt.

Our blueberry picking walk was about 1 1/2 – 2 miles round trip, which might as well be 26.2 for my kids. They’re the worst walkers of any city kids I know. After about a mile, George asked if we could take a break. Then, he asked if we could play sports during the break. I’m not sure if he understands what a break is. Then, we played tag. The tree was base, but at one point, Hazy went to tag him, and George slid onto the ground, shrieking, “LAYING DOWN IS BASE!” You’ve got to admire his spirit.

Back at home, we had some lazy rainy day time watching women’s golf (which Opa has decided Hazy should pick up so she can be a millionaire at age 20), reading with Oma (George), and completely dominating Horsopoly (me). I mean seriously, I had like 20 hay bales (houses) and 3 stables (hotels).

At one point, George attempted to give Opa advice on Candy Crush, at which my dad is convinced he’s top-ranked in the world. (He may be right; he’s quite good.)

When the sun finally came out, we went outside to play tennis ball games, namely (Don’t) Catch Then Run Down The Hill After The Ball & Try (And Fail) To Throw The Ball In The Bucket. I hope these are also sports in which they can become millionaires by age 20, because this is where we’ve invested most of our training time (this and pool somersaults).

Thank you, my village people, for giving us a place to stay at that’s even more fun than the YMCA.  (see what I did there?)