Memories of Grandma(s)

I have been very fortunate to have 4 Grandma's in my life. You may ask how can she really have 4 Grandma's?

There is my Great Grandma Small or as everyone called her Grammy she was my Dad's Grandma and she lived until her mid 90's. She was was able to welcome her 10th Great, Great Grandchild (Nicole) before she passed away. She lived down the long driveway behind my parents home.
Then there was my Dad's Mom (Grammy's daughter) she too lived until her 90's and lived just down the road from us so we had lots of time to visit, learn and enjoyed each other. Both Grammy and Grandma Lee were single Mothers and were hard working women.
Still on my Dad's side of the family, since my Grandpa got remarried I had yes another Grandma Lee, but to make sure we didn't confuse us we called her Grandma Eva. I remembering going to visit my Grandpa Lee and Grandma Eva almost every Summer. Playing cards was a highlight and I got to ride my bike in the city. Shortly after we got married my Grandma Eva passed away.
The picture above is my Grandma McConnell. She is my Mom's Mum (I thought I should refer to her as my Mom would).
As with my other Grandma's I had a wonderful relationship with her. There is lots memories that are flooding my memory now. Saturday I had the opportunity to be able to say farewell to her. It was a sweet time to seat by her side, stroke her hand and was able to let her know how much I loved and appreciated her. Later that night I got the called that Grandma passed away.
Grandma loved her tabloids and I remember our conversation when I told her that the articles are fabricated. Her response was "they wouldn't print it if it wasn't true". Grandma did have a tendency to be a little naive (now you know where I got it).
Grandma's house was the gathering place, since most of her children lived out of town that made it convenient for all. But it wasn't limited to her children and grandchildren, it was open to all.
When I was in school I always like to tell my friends that I went to visit my Grandparents in Canada. Little did they know that they only live about 25 miles away.
She was wonderful example, she never spoke unkindly about anyone, she was a wonderful hostess always making sure all had cookies, a snack and coffee, tea or some kind of beverage. It was a little difficult when I was trying to watch my weight, I really thought she was determined to make sure I didn't go home without a cookie or snack.
Oh, how I treasure these memories and feel so blessed to have the influences of these wonderful women.
I am grateful that I know that I will be reunited with them someday.

It not the destintation it's the journey......

****Warning Long Post*****

Our journey started while the girls were home for a long weekend. First stop was visiting the Vancouver LDS Open House.

Played games, visited and cleaned out the front hall closet (this is the closet with all the coats that belong to everyone and didn't want to get rid of perfectly good coats without approval of all involved).

Then Nicole and Rayme flew to Las Vegas for Nicole to go back to work and Rayme to attend training. But they can't leave without Michelle and me, so we joined them in Las Vegas the next day.

We usually are not the typical Las Vegas tourist, but this time we did some of the tourist attractions. We walked the strip to enjoy the bright lights and the different hotel attractions (interesting place to people watch). The Mirage Hotel has the volcano action going on (which is kind of funny since a real volcano was raising such a ruckus in the other parts of the world.)

Watched the fountains at the Bellagio and the beautiful flower displays.

Since the Country Music Awards were in Las Vegas, a free concert was offered on Freemont Street. We got there to claim our spots to watch some of the country music favorites. Ok - I need to admit I really do like a wide variety of music, but I am not the best at knowing band names or names of songs, etc. So when our friends and the girls were talking about the well known bands and artist playing I really didn't have a clue. The girls assured me that I would know who they were and would start singing the songs until I would recognize them. As you can see from the pictures there quite a few people there. Did I mention that we stood there for a long time and all the while trying to keep our flip flops from be permanently fixed to the ground. The bands we saw were Emily West, Danny Gokey and Lady Antebellum. As you can see we were pretty close.

On to our next adventure to the West Rim of the Grand Canyon. Now we were warned that we would have to venture down some gravel road, so we weren't to surprise that the sign pointed down the gravel road. What we didn't know is that we missed the turn and took the long way there (we called it the scenic route). This side of the Grand Canyon has the glass walkway to goes over the canyon. (Just for the record the blonde in the picture is Heidi - Nicole best friend.)

It's not the destination it is all about the Journey.

The Girls are on their way....

Home!!

Michelle called is at the airport waiting for her airplane.
Nicole called too and is at the airport waiting for her airplane.
Michelle called again and now is at the Boise airport ready to get on her next connection. Only to get to Seattle and another connection. Hopefully her luggage will make all the connections too.
Waiting, waiting....getting more excited for the girls to get home.
We are so blessed to be able to travel by fast moving airplanes, and that we live so close to the airport that it doesn't matter that I get to go there twice in just a few hours because I get to see my girls!
As a family we plan to attend the Open House for the LDS Vancouver Temple. That is another blessing we are very excited about too. Blessings everywhere.

Weird Moments at Wal-Mart on Wednesday

Today while shopping at Wal-Mart, I noticed a young man (I would say in his 20's) holding a pair of thong underwear and giving a thorough examination, tugging and stretching the waistband. I mean really like he was trying to figure out if these were the ones to buy. I didn't hang around because I feared that I couldn't help myself from laughing out loud, and what if he noticed me and asked for my advice. Oh dear!

April Fools Day Memories

Do you have any April Fools Day memories?
My memory was when I was growing up my Dad would come into our bedroom and announce that school was cancelled. We would ask why, and he would make different things up each year such as no power, water main broken (which we had a school in the country, so I don't think they even had a city water), or it was a nice sunny day. I fell for it every year.
Rayme on the other hand has a few successful pranks under his belt, but he usually wouldn't wait until April Fools Day.

A Month of Birthdays

I knew that March was a busy birthday month, but now with facebook I am reminded of all my high school friends' birthdays too.

Not only do I have many friends birthdays in March, but have many family members too.There is my Grandma's 91st birthday, an uncle, mother-in-law and my dear husband Rayme's 50th birthday, and those are the ones I remember.

Lesson learned - if you are not a good liar, you should not host a surprise party. Therefore, I will not attempt to throw a surprise party again. Oh, don't get me wrong - please invite me to be a guest (I can keep a secret if I don't see the guest of honor to close to the celebration).

As I mentioned it was Rayme's 50th birthday and it was on a weekday (not the best day to throw a party) and with his shift work it causes a some difficulty to try to schedule a party. A little celebration was in order since it was his 50th. Just invite a few close friends because of the tricky scheduling, and the more I invited the more chances he would not be surprised, and our house space is limited. The theme was picked out as a result of him planning my funeral (I was sick a few weeks ago - nothing serious) and he decided a "Cowboy" theme would be great fun at my funeral. Anyway, since I wanted to beat him at this own game. I decided that if he had a "Cowboy" theme, he couldn't use that theme for my funeral. Ok- this was a very in depth conversation about my funeral planning (maybe I should write it for another post). I had it planned cowboy pizza (his favorite), cowboy cookies, cowboy napkins, found some plastic barbed wire, and everyone donned cowboy hats and bandanna's. But, he knew all about his party because he quizzed me, integrated me and came right out and asked me if I had a surprise planned, and then was I surprised when he came out to greet me after I came home from town with all of his party goodies. Nicole warned me that I probably couldn't pull off a surprise party and she was right. I will not be planning any surprise parties anytime soon.

Happy Birthday to all of you that have a birthday this month.

Note to Mom

Mom-

This is me waiting. I know I am not alone in the waiting.

Love,

Nicole