Tuesday, August 4, 2009

A hot day at Grandpa Camp

Day two of Grandpa Camp - making Family History with one special little boy (lucas is almost six) at a time - was a hot one - we had 90F+ heat with relatively high humdity and it made being in the sun difficult. But we persevered. Camp events today were:

* Playing baseball in the backyard - hitting, fielding, throwing with wiffle balls and soft rubber balls and a plastic bat. I don't have a light enough aluminum bat for him - he's only 45 pounds and the 27 inch bat we have swings him. He tries so hard!

* Playing soccer in the backyard. This kid has a motor that never stops. After ten minutes, I'm breathing hard and sweating and he's still running. He won the soccer game 7-6. He's a really good sport and a competitor.

* We went to the San Diego Zoo today, along with about 50,000 other people. We met my other daughter and her two little girls (ages 4+ and 1+) - so Grandma and Grandpa had three of the four grandkids to watch have fun. We ate lunch first. I rode the Skyfari to the far side of the Zoo with Lucas and Lauren, and then we walked the half mile of Elephant Odyssey. The kids loved the big animals they can climb on - and we took pictures. It was too hot to stop and really watch the real animals though...so we ended up at the snack bar and had a nice ice cream in the shade and got everybody hydrated again. Lucas and Lauren played in the play area for awhile, and then we walked the mile to the entrance and came home. It was a short day at the zoo, but we go often and everybody has a pass.

* Lucas was the only one that didn't get a nap, but he watched his DVD player while everybody else snoozed. Then he and Lauren played in the kiddie pool for awhile and drew chalk pictures on the patio concrete. Audrey is just starting to walk and she really wanted to get wet too but we kept her relatively dry.

* We went out to dinner at Rubio's in Otay Ranch, and after eating the kids chased bubbles around the fountain. They had a blast doing that, and throwing coins in the fountain (of course, Lucas had to reach in and get more coins to throw back in). He really shared well with his smaller cousins, and helped me feed Audrey, sharing his burrito and drink with her.

* Back at home, Tami got her girls in and out of the bath while Linda put a small birthday party for Lucas together. Cake and strawberries and ice cream, a candle and song. Tami packed her girls up and headed home and Lucas went into the bath. We watched the Padres game after that and he fell asleep on the bed watching the game.

So Day two is done, and Grandpa is still hot, and tired out. Lucas will be ready to rumble early in the morning, so this is all the blogging I'm going to do for today.

If I'm not doing genealogy research, I really want to make great family history!

So what happened in genealogy today? I see that Ancestry.com will have a public offering, and that they've released some income and revenue statements. My view is that we genealogists need the commercial genealogy companies to be profitable so that they'll stay in business, and we need competition in the industry in order to keep the companies vying for our subscription business. There are a lot of records that need digitizing and indexing so that they can be accessed by researchers. The database companies are doing a pretty good job of adding new content, and improving their website navigation and search capabilities. There are several excellent software companies that are continually upgrading their products, and the competition keeps them in this continuous improvement cycle. Enough for the soapbox...off to bed!

1 comment:

Mary said...

Grandchildren are God's gift for surviving "Parenthood"...enjoy!