Lord Protect me from My Friends

The saying, Lord Protect me from my friends, I can take care of my enemies, is ten folds stronger when it comes to family. In particular – kids – parents relationship. Almost any parent got hurt in one way or another from their kids, and this is our turn, I guess. Both Patti and I are very hurt these days, and it is hard to move on.

Moving North

Thursday, June 17h, 2010 – We are here in this new campground for couple days now but we didn’t do much – it is rainy and cold outside. We drove on Monday to Phillips Campground in Evanston, WY right on Hwy 80. We didn’t even hook up, or unhook the the truck. Got there in the evening, open the slides, went to bed, got up, closed the slides, moved on. I can’t even tell if the place is good or bad – we hardly saw anything.
On Tuesday afternoon we arrived to Ashton, ID. This is the only campground in the Yellowstone area with decent rates – and they are even members of Camp-Club USA, the new discount club sponsored by Woodalls and Camping World. The campground is situated on 100 acres that are a combination of a golf course and a campground. The sites are isolated way back in the woods, but still – have full hookups. This is the first time I see sites so far apart, with full hookup. But – No Internet, and the phone service is not the best – so we have got a little problem. They have WiFi at the office, but you can’t sit there. There is an outdoor swing by the office where you can sit as long as your battery lasts and use the WiFi. They call it the WiFi HotSpot but it wasn’t hot at all. It was in the 50’s and rainy…

 

 

Kids, Oh Kids

Cold Front from the west

If you follow my blog, you probably remember we spent most of our Winter in CA around my two youngest kids, where we spent our weekends together. Since I left CA, I am trying to call my kids leave them messages and send them emails – but no response… That seem a little odd – it has been couple months by now. Today I finally got a hold of them. I actually got a hold of their mom who controls everything in their lives – including their thoughts :) (But this is another story) – so I talk to them, and as the conversation goes I am asking them if they want to come and visit me in their summer vacation. I get a very cold response – as if I asked them if they want to pick up garbage in the streets of LA… Didn’t seem right. My daughter said – you got to talk to my mom about it, she knows what I want and only she can make plans… I talk to my son, and hear the same story – I don’t know, I may need to volunteer, I may not have time this summer…  This is my son that had so much fun with me just a short while ago, and said he couldn’t wait to be with me this summer.
I hear the voice of the kids but the words are coming from somewhere else. I believe they got some very strict instructions on this subject. It hurts, but this is what it is. I love my kids very much, but I can’t change the situation, and that is a shame…

Much Colder from the East

Patti is hurting too. Her only daughter, the one Patti loves so much is turning her back. She is older now married and has two kids – our beautiful granddaughters. As a child, Patti’s daughter got everything she wanted. Didn’t even has to ask twice. When she was 16 we lived in a small town in central MN. We thought that country living will be the best for the kids.This is where she met her boyfriend, now her husband. It didn’t take long for us to understand that there is not much in this town for us, or for the kids, and we moved on. But Patti’s daughter stayed in touch with her boyfriend no matter where we went. To make a long story short – They got married and moved back to this little town, where her husband’s family live. We tried at one point to move back to this town to be closer to her and our granddaughters, but it did not work. It was just the two of us, Patti and I, vs the big family of her husband who all lived in the area – we just didn’t fit in. The business we had at the time – a dog breeding facility, didn’t make it either. The distance from the city and the economy crisis didn’t help, and we had to close our doors and move on.
So what happened? Many things. Little things. Since we left MN about a year ago, the relationship just diminished. Phone calls were short, and we felt that the warmth is just not there. So one thing led to another – and she said, and she said too, and now – no one is talking. Both right, both hurt. I do know Patti is hurting – a lot. This is the daughter she always had in her dream as this close friend mother-daughter relationship, that consult each other and spend some unique fun time together all through their lives. But reality is different, and the dream is just a dream. Hurts.
So we hope for better days, and better mood. Maybe when the sky clears and we will get out and hike we will feel better a little bit.