It’s wasn’t that long ago that teenagers were the ones cruising around in cool cars, while their grey-haired grandmothers passed time gliding back in forth in a rocking chair knitting an afghan. Today, young girls are more likely to be clicking away with knitting needles and grandpa is the one out until all hours of the night in his hot rod. That’s because today’s grandparents are younger, hipper, better educated, wealthier and more active than grandmas and grandpas of generations past. Often they share their exuberance for life with their grandkids, and thanks to bands like The Rolling Stones they are now sharing musical tastes, too.

Refusing to be labeled ‘grannie’ or ‘pap pap,’ a lot of baby boomer grandparents are not content wiling away their golden years in front of the television. Now retired and still in good health, some boomers are getting college degrees, traveling the world, hang gliding and doing all the things they didn’t have time for when they were raising their own families. And many of these newfound activities involve their grandkids.

For some, it’s simply having the desire to stay active and there’s no better way to do that than spend time with the younger generation. Others want to have the type of relationship with their grandkids that they never had with their own grandparents.

Grace and John Perry of the South Hills fall into both categories. Growing up in Canada, Grace only remembers one of her grandmothers. And she never saw her in anything other than a dark colored, floor-length dress. Even when grandma was working in the garden, she donned a full-length dress. “She was very much the lady,” Grace says. And while the grandkids all enjoyed her company, she was more apt to scold them for running in the house than she was to sit and play games with them.

John, also Canadian, remembers all of his grandparents quite well. Though they didn’t go fishing or camping together, he says they did have a fun relationship considering at the time he thought of them all as being very old. In retrospect, he says his grandparents were probably about the same age or younger than he is today. And you’d be hard pressed to find someone that would call John old.

Both Grace and John are longtime skiers and golfers and enjoy spending a lot of time staying active and being outdoors. With two grandkids in Canada and one in eastern Pennsylvania, the couple spends a bit of time traveling around to see to visit them. And they also have very different relationships with her grandkids than they did with their grandparents.

Not apt to garden in a full length dress or scold children for running, Grace has taught all of her grandkids how to swim while spending time at the family’s cottage outside of Montreal. And John has spent many a day fishing with the grandkids down at the dock. They bought the small cottage in the early 1970s and spent a lot of time there with their children. Even though the cottage was only 10 miles from the home they lived in at the time they purchased it, they would pack up the family and head there for everything from a long summer vacations to a brief afternoon picnic. So when they became grandparents, it was only natural that they would take their grandkids there and do some of the same things they did with their children.

It’s at the cottage that the whole family can gather together and have fun. Evenings are spent enjoying dinner on the sun porch and playing endless hours of card games and horseshoes. And days are filling with outdoor fun, picnics and togetherness. Time at the cabin is so cherished that one summer day a few years ago John and Grace’s grandson sat on the curb for most of the day waiting for them to arrive.

At a time when parents are pulled in many different directions and kids’ schedules are booked solid, Grace says it’s even more important for grandparents to spend time with grandkids doing simple things like playing games or baking cookies. Those kinds of moments will be cherished memories some day. And they’re a great way to make sure your grandkids won’t use the word old to describe you someday.