One, two, three, four.
I declare a Thumb War.
Five, six, seven, eight.
Try to keep your thumb straight.

Granddaughters Krista (8) and Tess (6) stayed overnight with us at the camp this weekend. It was a fine and fun night. On the way home, the girls thumb-wrestled in the back seat.

We stopped in to see my father yesterday. He's doing better. He says that the pain, on a scale of one to ten, is a two or three. We did some shopping for him and a few chores around his house.

Sandra's mother will have her back operation in September with an expected six to eight weeks of recovery.

The big news of the weekend was the devastation wrought by Hurricane Charley. Sandra's aunt, Marie, lives in Bradenton. My cousin, Norma, lives in Winterhaven. We hope that they and their homes are ok. We'll make some calls to find out more. Today is Norma's birthday.

On Friday I picked up a number of new assignments at work. I spent much of the day getting organized for same. My back-of-the-envelope calculations show that the workload will be just about right. I have several intermediate deadlines before our week's vacation during Labor Day week. My work days are starting to fill up with regularly scheduled meetings. In all, it's settled into normality.

Vacation in three weeks. We'll spend the week at the camp. Labor Day week is a fine time for a vacation. The lake is quiet and the weather is still warm.

You'd think that, after all of the time that I had off this year, I wouldn't be thinking about vacation already. Well, I am. It is different this year, to be sure. For one thing, I won't be stumbling into vacation exhausted. One year, I slept twelve hours a day for the first week that I was off. This year I expect to have more energy. I've been working on a patio at the camp and hope to finish it this time. We have about a half hour's work on the dock that could easily turn into two days' worth. In years past, a kingfisher has followed us as we paddled around the lake in the canoe.