Over the River and Through the Woods...Back to Grandmother's House

At the zoo, feeding the budgies...My granddaughter, now six, is fascinated by the birds. You can feed them with sticks of seed that you can buy for $1 each. We don't buy any of course, so she picks up seeds from the ground and feeds the birds with these.

I'm sitting here at 4:30AM. My beautiful daughter and my three grandchildren are asleep in various beds at my home. We drove up here last week after I spent a week at her house. I wanted her to relax and have a vacation. We have been spending time at the pool and each day we have gone somewhere fun for the children. Tall ships, kids' discovery center, monorail, zoo. I am always conscious of how quickly they will grow up so I try to cherish each moment with them. Sometimes it's hard, because they fight as siblings do. Although we've tried to relax, we seem to be on the go every moment of every day. Even with two adults helping out, there is always something to be done: dishes, laundry, meals, cleanup, entertainment.

So, the drive up was very, very long. The baby decided to cut a tooth that day and screamed the entire time or so it seemed. Three car seats crammed into my Honda. We stopped again and again. Bathroom breaks, meal breaks, stretch your legs breaks. Finally arrived late in the night, kids asleep. Quick, blow up the bed and go to sleep!

On the way up, my A/C fan started making a clicking noise. So, no more A/C. Fortunately, it wasn't too hot and we could keep the windows open. Next day we noticed that the car smelled funny. Daughter checks to see if any diapers were left in the car, we decide that it is rotten food somewhere. After all, the kids were eating constantly. So, we search for rotten food, take the car seats apart, but nothing is obvious. Can you see where I'm going here? Next day, smell is much worse, A/C still makes clicking sound. We joke that something is caught in the fan and then realize that this is exactly what happened. So we are driving the "mousemobile" now. My son tells me how to go underneath the glove box and, with a Phillips head screwdriver, open the panel and pull out the fan and thus the rotting, beaten to death creature that sounds like a playing card on a bicycle wheel.
But I have postponed that activity till some other time. I know from experience that rotting animals only smell really bad for a few days...