There is a lot to talk about this week including Senior Safety, but I will save that scintillating topic for next week. Today we are talking about my upcoming summertime adventure with Lyla and Wren known as Gams Camp. Unfortunately grandson Noah is working and won’t be joining us (also since he’s 19) and my sweet 9-yr-old-grandson, Oliver, in Oregon, is in Oregon. I will see him at Thanksgiving, so will be planning some special time with him.

You may remember last year the girls and I had two glorious days of near heat stroke and lots of animal encounters, a trip to Ft. Worth and a six-layer cake packed with sprinkles. This year I am adding a day and we will venture into the triple-digit Texas heat sparingly.

I can learn.

Delightful Lee, also known to her grands as LeeLee, had LeeLee Camp a few weeks ago with her granddaughter Zoe. Dare-devil that she is, her camp lasted a full week, and she did a lot of cool stuff with Zoe. What I loved though and have appropriated for my own camp is asking Zoe to make the schedule of what she wanted to do. This is brilliant for a number of reasons, but mostly because it gave ownership of the activities to Zoe and protected LeeLee from “Yuck” backlash.

So this morning I picked up Lyla and Wren and took them to a planning breakfast.

Yes, it was a very serious event. I brought pads and pens and some magazines that had some good ideas for them to browse.

Let me first digress to say that my oh-so-cute grands had Cheerleader Camp this afternoon and so came dressed for it.

We got settled in our booth at First Watch. I chose a booth so we could be private, but also contained.

The girls tried out the summer juice drinks, one with lemon and lavender and the other with watermelon. We ordered an array of breakfast foods and settled down to work.

First came the structure of the thee days: breakfast, activity, lunch, activity, dinner, relax, TV, etc. At least six activities. Seven meals. It was decided that the last breakfast would be fruit and Pop Tarts. “Cause we can’t go to Gams without Pop Tarts,” Wren said loudly enough for the tennis moms at the next table to hear. I’m sure they never have Pop Tarts in their houses.

But, then you already know about my food failures and foibles. That’s not why we’re here.

The list of activities we discussed is long and varied and involves a mix of low-budget and free items, plus a couple of splurges :

• The Dallas Aquarium (if you haven’t been, it’s like a rainforest with birds and a lot of screeching.)
• American Girl Doll Store for lunch and some serious budget destruction
• Swimming and picnic (this would be at their house; we would sneak in the back, unnoticed.)
• Spa Day: mani, pedi, face mask, etc. with a trip to Ulta
• Baking treats and delivering to my older friends--we needed a charity component and cleaning out the attic for donations seemed a little extreme
• The library–this is another one of my “things”
• Michaels to get a couple of crafts
• Lunch at the Zodiac Room or somewhere posh followed by picture taking: these become Christmas presents
• Go to a movie, with popcorn and milk duds
• Making a scrapbook of our adventures (this is another thing I am borrowing from LeeLee and Zoe.)

For meal ideas I brought copies of recent Food Network and Pioneer Woman magazines. They dog-eared the items they would want to cook for dinner. Some choices included Tandoori chicken, cornbread, and plum pie with meringue. Lyla had Pastry Camp last week and so this seemed an obvious choice. When urged to cook more savory items, she replied, “I prefer to make pastries.”

They both chose a red, white and blue flag cake, so that will be this year’s sprinkle extravaganza. During Gams Camp, I leave my normal need for neatness, order and rule-following in the hall closet and let the sprinkles (and pretty much everything else) fly. It’s all about building memories, and the Learning Grandmother raises her white-bunned head as little as possible.

All that’s left is for mom Molly to give me the dates and we are good to go. I told the girls I would send them an itinerary. Wren suggested we could communicate on their watches (huge, colorful, Dick Tracey-esque safety tech that allows them to send audio messages and limited texts and emojis to select people.) This will keep them in the loop and help build the excitement to a fever pitch.

I imagine I have time to create a cute calendar and maybe a logo, print some canvas bags, decorate their room like a lake cabin, and go way overboard. Probably not, but I like the idea of it.

I wonder if Etsy has any of those old-time camp pennants. Or maybe an oar.