Days 15-18: One last night of fun and then errands, errands everywhere.

The morning after the wedding everyone dragged their asses out of bed and made lots of hangover jokes while munching on breakfast.  Patty, David, John and I assisted with a little bit of cleanup around the ranch, although there wasn't much to do.  Aurora and Julie have some really nice friends who did a whole lot of hard work, not to mention the brides themselves.  We said some goodbyes, drove back down to Phoenix and spent one more evening with Kat and Steve and the chilluns.  The Scrabble gauntlet was thrown.  My mother is one hell of a Scrabble player and most of the family tries their damndest to beat her whenever possible.  I did say tries.  Usually we can't.  She's good.

She's got the eye of the tiger.

But Fran is a studious competitor....

...and managed to pull out a victory!  In part due to this inspired move, making ODOSCOPE with Patty's game starting SCOPE, using the triple word.

Oooh, Fran!  Nice work.

The other project we were working on that evening was attempting to expose the Petite Fran to as much 80's and 90's music as possible.  He folks have done an excellent job with her musical education, but there are some gaps.  Beastie Boys, 80's dance pop, Howard Jones (I'm looking at you, Kelly).  We amused ourselves dredging up ridiculous videos on You Tube.  Petite Fran humored us very nicely.

The next day we watched Olympic badminton with the family and then put ourselves on a flight back to Denver.  The dogs were ecstatic to see us and there was much trembling and squealing.  From the dogs.  

The net two days are a total blur of errands and miscellaneous small tasks as we got ready to go to DC for John's sister's wedding.  We are working on getting one of my mom's cars into solid working order so John and I can buy it from her, and so on.  Exhausting and non exciting.  Onward!