A little update from Granny BearSC...bearly :)

Hello Everyone!

It's a beautiful spring day in South Carolina! Sun is shining, the birds are singing and.....well......all the E-Bears are sleeping (wonder if they are related to E-Bay and if that's a hybernation place)? Well, I don't think they are really hibernating, although I think their sleep is akin to that. They are "Bearably" tired :) and "Bearably" able to pull themselves out from under those nice warm, cozy covers! Well, that's almost true...the two smaller baby bears seem to keep on a runnin sort of like the battery commercial!

Anyway, since the E-Bears don't have internet yet, Granny BearSC will try to give a little update.......

Here is the simple version: The E-Bears arrived day before yesterday with their van, car and U-Haul. The fully loaded moving truck arrived yesterday along with wonderful helpers to assist in getting everything off the big truck (Papa bear, Mama Bear and all the little bears had already unloaded the U-Haul the day of arrival). Sounds so simple and without complications! So, there should be nothing more to report. I could log off and eat my delicious breakfast, right?

Well,.....there are just a few things that happened...just a few incidentals (Just in case Mama Bear should read this I want to assure her that they really were incidentals) :) Lets see.....they drove in, everyone was anxious to get out of the van and begin unloading. The cheering, the smiling, the hugging was all wonderful! (You know how Grannies are...everything that has anything to do with children or grandchildren is wonderful! And, she has to tell all about it. :) Anyway, of course the wonderful meal was waiting for them that some new friends had made so everything was thought of and set. They could unload the U-Haul, relax and enjoy their new surroundings. (I think this is where I left off above in the short versions).

So, Granny bear left to go back to her temporary den. Everything was under control, the bears were all active doing what bears do to unload, and settle in.

Just as supper time was arriving and all the bears were thinking about all that good food (Granny had also gotten a nice salad and nummy cupcakes for desert)....Granny bear was wizzing back to her temp den abode in her trusty Old Lizzy. As she rounded a corner there was a noise that had not been present before. Oh, something hanging down possibly? Something caught under Old Lizzy? Even with the new noise happening every so often, Old Lizzy kept on a rolling at a normal speed (don't think bears (or ladies) know much about these things :) Another slight curve though and the noise got much louder every time the wheel was slightly turned...there it was again. What could it be? So, Granny pulled trusty Old Lizzy over to the side of the road. As Granny walked around her trusty vehicle there it was....the right front tire FLAT as a pancake!! Old Lizzy had continued on, (what a trusty car) right around those curves and turns with a FLAT tire! How loyal can you be?!

Well, after assessing the situation, it was clear, Granny was a lady (or is that bear) in distress. Wonder why that isn't spelled Destress....as in De stress? There Granny sat thinking about how busy all the E-bears were, hating to disturb their fun. :) However, after calling another friend to find her husband was not home but working late, Granny bear didn't have anyone else to call. So, she made that fateful call to silb (that's son-in-law bear for anyone that is wondering)

Silb was ever so responsive and flew out to help gid (that's granny in De Stress). He flew out so fast that supper didn't even occur to him. He also brought 2 of the oldest bears along so they could learn how easily and quickly you can change a flat tire. (That's the way flat tires are supposed to work I think)

After making the phone call and sitting back in the drivers seat to take a little siesta, something dawned on Granny Bear. The spare was nicely hidden away "UNDER" everything in the trunk. See Granny had traveled, just like the E-Bears, from a far away land and had loaded everything she could squeeze into Old Lizzy's trunk. Have you ever seen a bears den unloaded by he side of the road? Good thing that the spare was small, it took every muscle to hass (is this how you spell hass?) it out of the bears den holding tank. Oh, I mean trunk...

Not only did Granny Bear look like a lady (or bear) in De Stress....she looked like a Gypsy Lady in De Stress! Car after car came by "Can I help you Mam?" (I am sure they just wanted the side of the road cleaned up) "No, I kindly said, my sil is coming very soon". So comforting...I could just relax, however...

While waiting I also realized that my gypsy belongings would look much better "inside" the car than laying by the side of the road. Even though I thought (notice I said thought) they would be going right back into the trunk when the tire was quickly and easily changed. (notice I said quickly and easily). Let me just say, it was a good thing they got moved "inside" the car.

Well, the knights in shinning armor came. Or is that bears in shining armor? Or is that shining? Well, please forgive my misspelled words, just a granny.... They swiftly undid everything that gets undone when you change a tire, put Old Lizzy's trusty spare on.How sinple, right? As I was thinking how really simple this had been and that I could have really attempted this myself something looked very similar to the tire they had taken off. (did I mention that it was still light all this time, but was quickly becoming dark?) The similarity was that the spare was also FLAT! I guess living at the bottom of the bear den for more years that I can even figure out (lets just say Old Lizzy is not a new car, by any stretch of the imagination) one would not even think about putting air in it, right? Do people really do that, check the air in their spare tires I mean? Well, onto plan B....take Granny's spare off and put silb's on. Hmmm....lug nuts don't seem to be coming off too well....actually one not too well at all and I hear silb say "its ruined, totally ruined". The little bears are now commending Papa Bear for being over 200 lbs (their perception :) because they thought if it was Granny bear "standing" on that wrench to try to loosen the lug nuts it wouldn't even budge. It was at this moment that I realized that changing a tire is not really meant for women, no...not at all....not even to think about it, its a man thing, totally a man's thing.

Well, after hassing (think that means putting "all" your weight on) the lug nuts they all came off and sinlb's spare was tried. Yeh....it matches up, were almost done. This will work, we will be on the road in no time. Yes, its pretty dark by now, flashers going, silb's car's head lights are on so they can see. But, the lug nuts are having trouble again, something is really wrong. Oh, no....one of those things that you screw the lug nuts onto just broke off. (Granny's aren't supposed to know their name). Wonder if you can drive with only 3 of those things, I thought....Then, another one got ruined somehow or was that before the one broke...actually by this time, sinlb had ascertained that when Granny bears snow tires had been taken off about a month earlier something went wrong and those things that Granny bear doesn't know the name of, got ruined. I heard him say tow truck several times about now and something about not being able to drive on only 2 of those things Granny Bear doesn't know the name of.

So, there it was, pretty dark, empty stomach bears (remember they weren't able to feast on the delicious hot dish that had been lovingly prepared and sent to them by a friend), had to contact Gramps bear to see if Old Lizzy had some sort of bearable towing policy. Oh, and in here somewhere is the part where one little bear and silb went to the fire station to put air in one of the two FLAT spares. I think it was just before the second thing Granny bear doesn't know the name of got ruined.

Oh, and I think this was also about the time that Granny bear got a phone call from Mama Bear saying the youngest baby bear had somehow found a permanent (yes, not washable, but permanent) marker and created a collage on the entire hall way of their new rental home. :) Lets just say that Mama Bear needed to be reminded at that moment that stress is dessert spelled backwards. :) Just "HOW" does this bear cub find a permanent marker when everything is still in boxes? Baby bears affinity with markers is uncanny!

After filling in silb about the art work that baby bear had done, we re-arranged their trusty car (that runs out of gas when you don't fill it up), so that we could all fit inside it (well, sort of) . Then the LARGE tow truck, actually it was more like a Papa Bear picking up his cub bear) came and swooped up Old Lizzy for her ride to the place that would repair her legs. We made an emergency run to McDonalds where they turned off their lights to close as we drove off. After dropping off Granny bear the E-bears headed back to their new den. Granny bear crashed into bed, very thankful for her comfortable soft den bed. At 1:40 a.m. Granny got a text message from faithful silb reminding her to contact the place where Old Lizzy had been taken first thing in the morning. He mentioned he was going to bed at 1:40 a.m. Hmmm what would silb be doing until 1:40 am.? Oh, Granny knows....scrubbing the art work off the ENTIRE hall of the new Bears den!!! They told me later this was painstakingly slow, but they were successful. That all markers belong in a vault, even the ones you don't know are hiding!

The night went fast, yesterday arrived and things were running more smoothly. The fully packed ABF moving truck arrived that friends helped unload. It was a heroic feat on the drivers part to back the mammoth truck through the twisty turns. As it arrived little D Bear said "There's the ABS, can it climb trees Mommy?" He was very happy when Mommy explained to him that it was a truck and all of his toys were in it.

The U-Haul left, and then the U-Haul came back! It came back with a big surprise for the children inside. Granny won't spoil it by telling you what was inside, Mama Bear can do that when she has internet access again. Lets just say, Granny wants a turn too! :)

So, another day has dawned today and Granny bear is going to take a little run in Old Lizzy out to see and help the E-Bears. Actually (phone rings),.....Granny just found out her services are greatly needed right away (I am being told this as I am typing and laughing!!!) to go on a heroic mission to get an adapter for the dryer plug. You see after a week, the laundry (I am now being told) is about to take over and come alive and eat all the E-bears. They slept well, after collapsing into bed. Mama Bear unloaded the entire kitchen, except for a couple of boxes hiding somewhere.

From Mama Bear herself: "We're having fun, it's kind of like a corn field maze in here. I mean some of the rooms are hilarious! There are windows somewhere! We hardly remember when the last time was that we worked so hard. But, we love our new place. The other night Papa Bear called Mama Bear outside to feel and hear all the sounds of country life again. We can really tell that we are close to the mountains. When you step outside with the smell of the pine trees and the sounds of the wipperwills, you feel like you are in a retreat camping somewhere." End of Mama Bear Quote....

Granny Bear SC is off to get ready so she can get the part so that "Faithful Dryer" can once again serve the E-Bears!