Sylvia's Scenario

It’s September now and summer is soon ending but I'm a little more accepting of that since we just had our highlight of summer; our summer vacation.  Once again we visited Nick & family in Spain and then went on a Mediterranean cruise together.  It was a great way to spend quality time together and being the grandparents that we are, Nick & Sachiyo got a lot of alone-time together while we played with the grandkids.  The kids hung out with us A LOT.  At their house in Spain, we mostly swam in their pool playing all kinds of pool games and silliness, something they never seemed to get tired of.   I also packed some chapter books along with us since the grandkids are now 6- and 8-years old so I tried to remember what Nick and Lauren loved for me to read to them at that age and remembered their favorite  Indian in the Cupboard  and  My Father's Dragon .  I got the three-book series of my Father's Dragon and it turned out to be exactly th...

Yes, they take selfies in Spain, too.  These are Nick's next door neighbors in El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain.  We met them while we were visiting last month when Imma and Luis invited us over for coffee. Our little coffee hour turned into about a three hour BFF event.  And we don't speak Spanish and they don't speak English so go figure that one out...Nick was the middle man.   Nick had been practicing his Spanish for about three months and visits a tutor twice a week since he moved to Spain so he is getting pretty good.  "What did he say, Nick?"  "What did she say, Nick?"  Nick, tell her that.....".  Nick, Nick, Nick....Poor Nick but it was really good practice for him and we all actually seemed to understand each other.  We all had translators on our smart phones so we would try that but honestly, it was just easier to communicate via Nick and that's what we mainly did.   Imma served us some pudding cake that was quite yummy with our...