September 06, 2022

Scenes from Summer 2022

September 06, 2022/ Lisa Carpenter

Welcome back! I hope everyone enjoyed their summer, making memories and more with loved ones.

I was blessed with memorable moments with many a loved one since pressing pause on Grandma’s Briefs for the season.

April 01, 2022

March 2022: These are a few of my favorite things

April 01, 2022/ Lisa Carpenter

March was a relatively uneventful month for me. Still, I managed to take—or, in a few instances, acquire—lots of photos. I even pulled out the DSLR at one point for snapping some shots.

Here are a few of my favorites from the past month.

May 21, 2021

Grandma's heroes: Where the boys are

May 21, 2021/ Lisa Carpenter

Kids across the country—and their parents and teachers, too—are celebrating the end of the most challenging school year ever. From pre-K to college age, students have survived a school experience not a single adult alive has ever had to muddle their way through, thanks to Covid.

Sure, parents and teachers had it rough (often beyond rough) making the schooling work somehow, some way. Yet no one over the age of 30 can fully comprehend how it felt and what it meant—and continues to mean—being a kid of any age enduring the wacked out way the 2020-2021 school year went.

September 11, 2020

Summer 2020: What I didn't tell you

September 11, 2020/ Lisa Carpenter

July 25, 2020, marked the eleven year anniversary of Grandma’s Briefs. During many summers, I’ve taken a break from blogging from Memorial Day through Labor Day, to allow me time to enjoy summer fun without being obligated to publish anything.

This past summer, I chose not to take a break. I figured that with Covid restrictions and all, I’d have little to do and lots of time to write about the little I might do and see and ponder.

April 09, 2020

Getting to know you …

April 09, 2020/ Lisa Carpenter

During this time of physical isolation, video chats with my grandsons are for me, like with many grandmas, a saving grace. They not only let me see those faces my heart misses so — the long-distance ones as well as the one belonging to my local love bug — the sessions allow me to get to know the boys in ways not possible in face-to-face real-time rendezvous. Trying to keep conversations flowing provides telling insight … and some fun musical performances too.

February 17, 2020

Beach boys!

February 17, 2020/ Lisa Carpenter

Beach boys!

A while back, Declan simply could not get enough of Disneyland and pleaded with Mommy for them to please go again. They did go again not long after … and again the beginning of February.

The fortunate grandsons also went to the beach — a definite delight for the desert-dwelling trio.

A definite delight for this fortunate grandma, too, who was on the receiving end of ...

January 09, 2020

Weekly pic: Finally!

January 09, 2020/ Lisa Carpenter

My beloved desert-dwelling grandsons and their equally beloved parents are die hard Phoenix Suns fans who attend games every chance they get.

November 14, 2019

Grandma success!

November 14, 2019/ Lisa Carpenter

As a grandma, you know you’re onto something when after engaging in an activity with a grandkiddo, he or she says, “We should do this every time!”

Well, I believe I’m onto something as Declan, my five-year-old long-distance grandson, declared exactly that during a recent FaceTime visit he and I had.

My success revolved around …

October 25, 2019

Grand fun: A Bearizona visit with Arizona boys

October 25, 2019/ Lisa Carpenter

Hard to believe it’s been nearly a month since Jim and I visited our grandsons (and daughter and son-in-law) in Arizona.

Hard to believe, too, that I’ve not shared the stories of all we did (other than make bracelets) during that visit. But with Benjamin’s milestones to mark soon after our return — such as his first haircut and his first birthday — details on our desert visit to see Brayden, Camden, and Declan were put on the back burner.

With temps hovering just below freezing and a snowy scene outside my windows as I write this, today seems an especially ideal day to recap one particularly grand fun-in-the-sun outing we had our grandsons at the outset of autumn. That being the day we spent at Bearizona Drive-Thru Wildlife Park, located about an hour south of the Grand Canyon.

October 03, 2019

Oh, yes we did: Bracelets with boys

October 03, 2019/ Lisa Carpenter

This past weekend, Jim and I kicked off fall with a quick visit to see our grandsons in the desert, as I’d mentioned here was on the calendar. During the visit, I did indeed make bracelets with the boys, just as Declan had requested.

Thing is, despite his enthusiasm upon seeing the paracord bracelet kit I’d brought in my Grandma Bag, Declan bowed out of the bracelet making in mere minutes. Which worked out for the best as bracelet-making was quite a feat for a five-year-old. Well, a feat for this grandma — who’s 10 times that and more — as well.