Family – Reno, NV

Well, the kids (grand-daughter-Kashmere, boyfriend-Sonny, their 15 MO baby boy-Gaven) flew back to Alaska today. Boots’ son-John and his family (wife-Melody, 7 YO boy-Bodhi and 3 YO girl-Tara) were also here in Reno for this past week-end. We are exhausted!!! I know the kids (big and small) all had a lot more energy than us. Being retired means being in no rush to see everything TODAY!

Luckily, the kids all stayed in the hotel associated with our RV Park. The Grand Sierra Resort has a lot to activities to entertain the families - bowling alley (50 lanes), arcade, movie theater, besides the casino for the older kid in us all.

We loved getting to know Gaven and he us. He’s just a little dynamo of energy and exploration. We had baby-proofed the RV – Or so we thought. He is almost like a monkey with prehensile feet/toes. He wants to climb everything in sight and see what’s on the other side or top or just because it’s there!!! At the same time he is gentle and loves his stuffed bear and easily provides kisses and hugs all around.

We had all three of them for a while on Friday night and Gaven just stared at Bodhi for the longest time. He was intrigued by this bigger version of himself. He wasn’t very interested in Tara except for the chair she was sitting in. She was barely able to keep possession.
One of the RV slide-outs has a small ledge that runs down the middle of the living room area. While Gaven has walking, tiptoeing, and running down pretty good – his visit here really introduced him to steps – sometimes with abrupt tumbles. By the end of his visit, all of the adults could relax a bit and he was up and down the ledge over and over again – whew!

Bodhi and Tara spent most of their time in the hotel pool. Bodhi can now swim pretty well. He was doing some diving, somersaulting, etc. in the water with the help of a snorkel mask until a 5 YO boy came to our side of the pool and started doing similar activities with no mask nor holding his nose at all. It was interesting to watch the “real” effect of peer pressure. Within minutes of the second boy’s arrival, Bodhi gave up the mask and started doing his underwater activities without that added aid.

Tara is the more serious of the two and takes a while to get into a teasing mode. Ruthi complimented her on the very pretty pull-over she was wearing after swimming. It was a design in various shades of “pink” that Ruthi insisted was “green”. Tara was appalled that anyone would call it “green”! 3YO is a very serious age. Tara finally got the joke but was having no patience with Ruthi.

Karma ended up having to share space with Gaven and John’s dog-Sunny. Talk about confusion of names!!! The dogs had met before so staying together inside the air-conditioned RV while everyone went to dinner was better than taking a chance on the vehicle interiors with outside temperatures in the high eighty’s. Sunny is submissive to Karma but did want to take over her crate when all of the kids were roaming the small small living room floor.