DIFFERENT WEEK-END ADVENTURES

I am going to put up a quick post so that hopefully I will not be to next Friday before I am finally catching you up on our week-end.  We had a very busy but very nice one and believe it or not we did a couple of things NOT in our "ordinary" week-ends, lol.  On Sat morning hubby and I did sit around for a while and have a leisurely chat over coffee and tea before starting our day as always.  We both LOVE this time and do what we can to guard it.  I honestly think it became such a habit years ago when we were raising our family, that we have continued it to this day and still cherish it as some of our best times. When we were raising our wild bunch of 4 it was hard to get uninterrupted time to sit and talk and catch up on our week [we were both soo busy and usually going in very different directions!] and so we sat aside Sat. mornings to do so.  We took our coffee into our bedroom sitting area [we had such comfy chairs!] and sat together talking for at least an hour and sometimes two before starting our day as a family. The kids knew not to interrupt and short of an emergency pretty much never did, lol.  So even though we live alone now with our kids all off busy with their own lives, and have LOTS of time to talk and spend together, we STILL have our Sat. morning "chats".  I have no idea why I just included this story into my post, but I have a feeling this is WHY none of my posts are ever quick, lol.  Back to Sat.  I think I have mentioned many times before that my oldest son is a sixth degree martial artist and owns and operates his own karate studio, and has now for close to 20 years. Recently he expanded his business to include kick boxing and some MMA training and it has all been going really well.  I think his lifelong dream is to have his dad be involved in this business in some way with him, as he is ALWAYS dreaming and planning ways to include him.  I think he thinks he has finally come up with a way, lol.  My hubby, who I know I have mentioned once or twice, lol went to the University of Nebraska on a full football scholarship.  Well in addition to football he was also their number one heavy weight wrestler for 4 years, and was beaten only a handful of times throughout his high school and college careers.  So in his time he has wrestled some of the best, and has had some tremendous coaches as well, and of course has since done some coaching himself over the years. Though honestly he has done a lot more football coaching then he has done wrestling. Anyway....all of this past information to tell you why he is qualified to coach these young men and fighters in wrestling. Now my son has been trained in grappling which while it is similar to wrestling, is different in other ways, but has not been professionally trained in wrestling. And since this is a BIG part of MMA fighting now, he wanted to offer his dad's services in this area to his students.  Sat was the first big day of this.  Truthfully I am a little on the fence on the whole idea.  I too love the idea of father and son working together at something they both love, but hubby is after-all sixty three years old, and while he is in unbelievably good shape for his age, I don't really want to take any chances on his getting hurt.  And I KNOW how he is.  NOT getting down there and actually wrestling around himself with these young men would call for severe discipline on his part, lol.  He tried to tell me he would use my son to demonstrate and work with the men [and a few women btw!] but after 40 some years together I do know him a little better then that, lol.  So I decided to go along and watch from the sidelines.  Right off I learned that my son was IN THE RING kick boxing and sparring and training the men there, while my husband had the wrestlers on the mats on the floor....so much for my son being the "demo" man, lol.  Now honestly MOST of what my husband did required not a lot of hands on demonstrating, but sure enough before it was over he was down on the mat demonstrating moves with them and engaging them in quick little matches.  I sat at the side praying no one hurt him or he didn't snap anything or something horrifying like that, lol.  I will say every one of those men were astonished that this "old guy" was soo quick they couldn't come close to pinning him, lol.  Now of course some of them are just beginners in the art of wrestling, but some of them also wrestled in high school, and they too just couldn't get the job done, lol.  None of these little matches lasted over a few minutes and according to my hubby he did it so that they would respect the fact that he COULD and did in fact know how to train them.  He claims in the future he won't be doing that and oh, btw, was NOT nearly as physically draining as I thought it looked like.  I don't know if I believe that or not, lol.  But when you hear what he did for the rest of the day he might be telling the truth, lol.  After the training was over we packed up and headed down to Newport Beach so that the Class men could spend some time swimming and surfing and bogie board riding together.  One of ALL of theirs favorite things to do.  It is soo hard for all of them to do this anymore what with their own families and all the schedules and activities etc., but they have been trying for a while.  It ended up that my youngest son left his wife and kids behind because there just wasn't a free time with all of them in the near future and summer is fading away.  Joe's wife Leah and Lindsey, Jeffie and Cody were able to come though, but John's girlfriend had to work as well so she wasn't there either.  I tried to get them to just let me go home as walking in the sand now is almost completely impossible for me with these knees.  But they all know how much I too LOVE the beach and how much I miss sitting by the water soaking it all in so they just insisted that I come and if they had to carry me [not easy task trust me!] to my chair they would.  Well, the sand at Newport is not nearly as extensive of a walk to the water as some of the other beaches so that helped, and somehow or another [half walking, half using them as canes] they got me down there.  I was almost giddy. How I love the beach.  I dug my toes into the sand and watched them swim and surf, and chatted and talked with Lindsey and Leah, and enjoyed watching my grandsons play as well.  It was just a wonderful four and half hours.  After that we left and all stopped at Wahoos for dinner [except for my middle son John who had already left] and continued on our visit through dinner.  We don't get many of these days and times anymore with a lot of us together and I enjoyed thoroughly every little minute even though we didn't get home until after nine o'clock.  Let me show you the few pics I got....

MY VIEW....JUST A GLIMPSE OF HOW IT WAS BEFORE A LOT OF THEM GOT THERE.  

LOOK AT HOW CLOSE I GOT TO THE WATER, LOL

AT THE END OF THE DAY....JOHN HAD ALREADY LEFT

PRETTY SUNSET

THESE TWO ALWAYS GO INTO THEIR "TOUGH GUY" FACES WHEN THEY TAKE PICS TOGETHER.....JUSDT A GOOD DAY!

SUCH A CUTE PIC OF LITTLE VINNY AT A LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL GAME THEY WENT TO ON FRIDAY NIGHT....THE CAPTION HIS DADDY PUT UP SAID IT,  "HEY GIRL...."  LOL  SOO CUTE!

LOVED THIS!

CLAIRE I GUESS GIGGLING AWAY....WISH I COULD HEAR IT!