Family visit

I haven’t posted for a while because I’ve been enjoying a visit from my dad, my brother and his wife. We had a nice time talking, and we also went to the Air Force Museum, a few parks, some antique shops, and, of course, restaurants. Food is always an integral part of any gathering, isn’t it? The photo of my family include my son-in-law and my daughter, my dad, myself and my husband, my mom, my brother, my daughter, and my brother’s wife.

I especially enjoyed having a whole week to visit with my father who is now 80. His mental capacities are definitely failing. He has a lot he wants to say, but he has a lot of trouble locating the right word, especially nouns and proper names. He is fixated on numbers, and he enjoys telling complete strangers that he was 100 years old. Much of his conversation revolves around numbers, but they are invariably wrong. At the same time, I pulled out a map of the United States and he pointed out each place he every lived while serving in the Air Force. Pretty amazing.

I loved the fact that he still has a great sense of humor. He loves to laugh, and he loves to be teased. Dad grew up playing all sorts of card games, and he usually won. One daughter playfully poked him, and the other playfully growled, and he was thrilled. My two daughters have fond memories of playing cards with him each time he visited, so we had to play a game of cards. We started out playing Crazy Eights, but it became a crazy game of Rummy and the rules were loosely interpreted so Dad could still play. We laughed so much! I’m sure it will be a fond memory in years to come.

I have vague ideas of making a quilt featuring a portrait of my dad. I think somehow I want to incorporate images of weather since he was a meteorologist, and lots of numbers, and maybe map elements. Maybe I’ll be able to start working on it next week.