Friday, July 2, 2010

Granny Camp Games

We thought we were going to have Nicholas, Miya and their friends in early June, for the first official “Granny Camp” session of the summer, but those plans were changed at the last minute. I’ve been sitting on “G,” and waiting for “o” for a month now. Mountaintop Mary and I have been conspiring to share kids and camping capers since last summer.

My niece Nikki and her family are coming today. We’ll begin their stay with introducing them to anywhere from twenty to one hundred of our neighbors at the July First Friday potluck supper. They’ll also get to meet Mary and John and their two dogs, as Mary’s ER visit has delayed their departure until at least tomorrow.
Nikki’s pre-teen daughter, Corinne, brought Coker Creek gold home from her last trip to visit us. Her one request is for gold panning with Bill of Bill’s Pit Stop, so this is the activity planned for the first full day of fun and frolic. Since I’ve never known Bill to come out of the creek without a vial of gold, I’m sure this will be a highlight of this trip for her, her daddy, Tom, and her mom. Mountaintop Mary, Don and their four grandchildren are going to join us in the gold panning adventure that will begin at Doc Roger’s field and continue in the creek that runs in back of our house. I’m hoping Corinne will love having a “little sister” to play with.

I can’t wait to cook with Corinne. She and I have shared kitchen capers since she was a toddler. One of her favorite creations is Cajun roasted pecans which are a favorite of her daddy. She’s an old hand at layering lasagna and breaking bread for bread pudding, as well as cutting up carrots for carrot cake. And I know Nikki is already drooling over the prospect of Richard’s perfectly prepared salads.

We’re old hands at Granny Camp; Rachel used to visit us with her girls for four weeks every summer. The first ten years were spent in New Orleans, where one of Richard’s joys was sharing what he referred to as “twucks, twains and twactors” with the kids. He was also into bringing home vast quantities of “fwozen confections” for everyone. Another of his tricks was building towers of “chick sticks” around the kids, and teaching them how to use leverage to tumble the towers.

The last five of the years of this summer tradition in Louisiana were spent on Lake Pontchartrain. Outdoor activities ruled on the lake. Richard would arrange to have everything in order for the day’s activities, whether they included crabbing, cooking or blasting across the lake in a boat. Rachel came to calling him an elf because whatever we wanted to do was waiting for us as before we even decided to do it. Richard is still an event elf; Nikki has been talking about his salads since her last summer visit with Corinne.

Let the Granny Camp games begin.