Beginning of our trip

We left Sun City June 25, spent 2 days driving, the 3rd day got some things out of our storage place in Dayton, stopped off to sign papers at our insurance agent's, then drove on to Toledo in time for dinner with Victoria and the kids on Monday night. We were thrilled to be reunited with these wonderful people! We enjoyed the week with Victoria and I was, once again, amazed at how hard she works at being in shape- running, Zumba, spinning class (where you don't stop for half an hour and the workout is a killer!), and just general scurrying through life with 3 busy kids. She left on Friday to join her husband for a 10-day visit to Paris and we took care of the kids. Our first night after Victoria left, we were awakened at 4 am to lights flashing through the curtains. We got up to see what is pictured above. It was dark so the photograph doesn't show things well but there were several fire department vehicles and personnel scattered all over the parking area behind the townhouses. We decided to go back to bed despite the strong smell of smoke. Around 4:30 there was a persistent pounding sound which we realized was a gloved had knocking on our door downstairs. We got up and let two firefighters in to check to see if the fire from the next apartment had bre2ched the adjoining wall into "our" home. Amazingly, the children all slept right through 2 burly firemen in full gear walking into their bedrooms with a flashlight feeling the walls. The next morning they were excited to hear about it and disappointed that they missed it. We found out later that a young child, between 5 and 10 years old, had been playing with matches at 3:30 in the morning and started the fire. Fortunately, no one was hurt but the family had to find a place to stay and the contents of one room was thrown out onto the front lawn, charred and smelling strongly of smoke.
We spent the remainder of our time there with no incidents more major than skinned knees and were sad to part with the 3 kids. Such is the life of most grandparents these days. We live far from our grandchildren and just don't get enough of them.