Archive for Family

Reminiscing about My Dad…

Posted on May 28, 2018 by

Today is Memorial Day.  A day we remember and honor our fallen heroes, and the ultimate sacrifice they made for our country.

Today is also day of reflection for me. My thoughts are on my Dad and his huge, loving,caring heart. We lost him five years ago next month and today was his birthday. So apropos for a patriot, a warrior, a family man, and loving husband to have a birthday on Memorial Day.

My thoughts don’t dwell on the sadness of losing my Dad as often as they used to nowadays. My thoughts most often turn to the memories with family. The good times we had coming together for this celebration or that birthday party. My Dad’s uncanny ability to embarrass his grand kids at the dinner table. And his nonsensical way of seeing life as it was and knowing exactly what he needed to do next.

 

Thinking about the play list of songs that were his favorites.  American Pie, On the Road Again, Fat Bottom Girls, and Rocky Mountain High, just to name a few.  Thinking about how my Dad would have embraced all the new technology surrounding us everyday.  He didn’t like us to say that computer data was stored “in the cloud”.   He felt that was just a big misnomer.  He would always tell us, “You guys do realize that the data is stored in some farm field in Kansas!  Not “in the cloud”.”

Thinking about what an amazing Grandfather he was. Six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren carry on his legacy.  They are an amazing bunch, and he was so proud of all of them.  Helping out at the drop of a hat, and always there to remind us, “it’s natural to be nervous”, in any stressful life situation.

The Grand-Daughters

The Grandsons

The Great-Grandson

The Great-Granddaughter

 

My reminiscing today would not be complete with out telling you about the love of my parents.  The strength and soul of our family.  They were married for 53 amazing years, and adored one another.  Watching my Dad dote on my Mom and kiss her in front of all the grand kids – a fond, fond memory.  The kids would shout out, “Grandpa – ewwww”, and he would just smile and kiss her again.  We would ask my Dad, “What’s the secret to such a great, long-lasting marriage?”.  He would reply, “I just do whatever your Mother tells me to do.”

 

Oh those memories are just like a slideshow in my head.  A carousel of memories that circle back around more often on birthdays or holidays.  These are just a handful of the meaningful memories that I carry close to my heart each and everyday.  Wishing each and everyone of you a day filled with family and love creating new memories.

2 comments Posted in Family, Grandkiddies

Our Family Calendar 2016

Posted on March 12, 2016 by

Yes friends it’s that time of year again.  It’s time for me to share our fabulous family calendar.  Actually I’m slightly late bringing this fabulous artwork to all of you this year.  We are creeping up on the 20th year of this calendar being put together.  Wow!  That fact alone amazes me to no end.  Just wow- another family tradition started by my parents. Over the last couple of years I was handed the editorial baton by my Mom to make sure the calendar tradition continues.  This year’s calendar is especially poignant because my Mom was able to get back into looking through pictures and put a page together for us. Thanks Mom!!  We’re so glad to have you back in the calendar making process.  (My Mom’s page is the one with the red background.)

It’s awe inspiring to see this project come together, and see the pages come to life as they get emailed in.  The process for the calendar pages goes like this.  There’s a post on our family Facebook page where everyone can join in and sign up for the month they want to put together.  Once all of the pages are assigned everyone is on their own to put the pages in place, and there’s a deadline for getting them turned in.  We all do the pages in Picasa’s collage format.  An easy way to get the pictures into a format that you like.  It actually takes longer to collect the pictures than it does to put the collage in place.  I always tell myself if there’s a picture or group of pictures I like I need to put them in a separate folder on my computer and collect them throughout the year.  So far this great idea hasn’t materialized for me.  My procrastination seems to get the best of me and I’m always scrambling to meet the deadline I set for the family!  

Once all of the photo pages are done it is my task to add the family birthdays’ and anniversaries for everyone.  My Mom chooses the photo that will become the cover for the calendar.  After we have proofed and re-proofed all of the birthdays, anniversaries, etc. we are off to the printer with our masterpiece.

So without further ado I present to all of you our 2016 family calendar.  A few of the months have definitive themes that are just treasures.  My Mom’s page is a collection of the black and whites from her childhood.  Family treasures and traditions just do not get any better than this.  It will always be my hope that this tradition will continue for many, many years to come.  Who knows maybe one day my grand-kids will be putting the calendar together!  Cheers to family traditions once again.  

Previous Image
Next Image

info heading

info content

This post linked to the GRAND Social

3 comments Posted in Family, Holidays

It Was Time to Retire the Firestick

Posted on July 21, 2015 by

2014-11-21 17.40.38

When I was growing up my parents took us on so many very, cool vacations.  We got to see quite a few of our national parks and wonderful sights.  Our mode of travel was normally some sort of camping.  We had a station wagon and a pop-up tent trailer for a long time, and then when my parents retired they ventured into the RV world and bought a beautiful Rexhall motor home.  You can read all about their adventures on my Mom’s blog, Joan on the Road.

One of the highlights of our camping experience was always having a camp fire.  Building a fire, keeping it going, and eventually roasting the marshmallows for a great s’mores treat.  I think one of my Dad’s favorite parts of camping was building the bonfire, I mean campfire, for the evening.  He would build pretty big fires, and he was the one who kept it going.  I know for myself I couldn’t wait until there were some lovely coals to roast my marshmallows next to.  I prefer them lightly roasted, thank you.  When we were on vacation we always had our guitars with us, and would play and sing around the fire.  We loved to sing John Denver tunes.  Oh those were the days.

Fast forward to my Mom and Dad’s RV-ing days, and they kept the campfire tradition going. Most times when we would visit them we’d have a fire, and maybe roast those marshmallows or a hot dog.  One thing that was always with my Dad for his campfires was some sort of strong stick that he could use to stoke the fire with.  It was a coveted stick, and as we all got older sometimes we would take turns stoking the fire too.  What a treat.

2015-07-20 19.01.27

When my Dad passed away and we were helping my Mom go through her RV and decide what she was keeping or not, she gave me my Dad’s last campfire stick he used for stoking the fires.  It’s really a personal memento for me.  It helps me to hold on to the good memories of our family times together around the campfire.

These days Travel Man and I have a trailer of our own that we like to take out for the weekends.  We always have the coveted “Fire Stick” with us to stoke our campfires.  But on our last camping trip we noticed the Fire Stick was starting to get a little short.  I kept catching the end of the stick on fire, and it seemed like it was getting shorter and shorter and fading away.  I suppose in the back of my mind I was worried that if the stick got shorter and went away the memories of camping with my Dad would fade a little bit too. So we made the painful (well for me anyway) decision to retire the Fire Stick.  We will be keeping it in the trailer with us when we go out on our camping adventures.  And eventually I think I will figure out a way to hang it on the wall.

It’s a wonder to me that a stick could hold memories that are so dear to my heart.  The memories of your loved ones that are no longer with you are the ones that you hold onto the tightest.  You never want to let them go.

3 comments Posted in Family

It’s Been a Long Time Since This Happened

Posted on July 3, 2015 by

 

There are many moments in my kids growing up years, their early growing up years, that I sometimes just do not remember.  I’m fairly certain I can attribute this fact to the events of 2001.  The year I turned 40, the year my first marriage fell to pieces, the year that my daughter, Hilary, had her first grand-mal seizure, and the year that my baby boy, Zachary, received a diagnosis of Leukemia (ALL) at the tender age of 9½.  2001 was definitely THE most challenging year of my parenting and adulthood to date.  It was the most trying year for my kids too.

Zachary’s leukemia and other health issues are one of the reasons I started blogging.  I have always felt that I had a story to share just because of my multiple experiences with chronic conditions, and now childhood cancer.  If I can touch one person’s heart with my stories, and let them know they will be able to get through anything, then that’s why I’m here.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

July 2001-ronald McDonald Camp

012-IMAG0004

4th of July 2001

Now back to Zachary; during Zachary’s treatment and recovery from his leukemia he had many, many visits to the pediatric oncology clinic.  For certain procedures or appointments he would have to go to the hospital for an outpatient procedure.  At this point in his chemo regimen he was going through so many procedures one right after the other.  It makes my head spin just to think back about those times. There was one particular day in the beginning of his treatments that he had to have a spinal procedure.  This procedure requires the spinal fluid to be drawn for testing, as they are checking for any cancerous cells in the brain stem.  For these procedures Zachary would be given Demerol. This would make him quite relaxed, a little sleepy, very chatty, and you never knew what he was going to want to talk about next.

Zachary was laying on the gurney and his little, pale face was chatting up a storm about something.  As the medical staff was prepping him for this particular procedure he began to sing.  The song he sang still melts my heart every time I hear it to this day.  He started to sing Lee Greenwood’s, “God Bless the USA”.  When I think about this moment I can picture Zach’s little face while he was lying on the hospital bed softly singing out the words, “And I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free”.  I cried like a baby for half an hour.  It was such a sweet, memorable moment my words here can barely do justice to the emotions I was feeling.  This is one of those stories that will be forever ingrained in my brain.  This was the sweetest moment ever with my baby boy.

After this happened my Mom sent a letter to Lee Greenwood about Zach singing his song, and Lee sent Zach a nice hat and an autographed picture as a gift. A grand gesture for my little 10-year-old battling the chemo mapping and procedures.

This summer will mark Zach’s 11th year cancer free.  We are forever thankful for the tremendous care, love and support he got at Loma Linda Children’s Hospital.

1017316_10151559369644440_1023049813_n

14148_301855763290495_708671988_n

Zach & Brookelynne’s Wedding Day

2015-04-05 11.23.21

Easter Weekend 2015

Today is Zach’s birthday, and he is doing so well. He is married, has a lovely wife and a pet turtle.  Zach is way less schmoopy about remembering all he’s been through. His mother gets teary eyed at the drop of a hat thinking about times gone by, and what we all went through together  in 2001.  But my heart is also overflowing with love, pride, and admiration because all of my kids have lived the definition of perseverance. They  all know that at any given moment if they are faced with difficult circumstances they can find a way to push through and they will be just fine on the other side of life.

Just know that this is another one of those families stories just waiting for the right moment to be told.  Today is the day for this one.

This post linked to the GRAND Social  and at MidLife Luv Linky Party.

8 comments Posted in Family

FaceTime with the Grandkids

Posted on June 30, 2015 by

My grand-kiddies can be sooooo entertaining.  They will be the generation that takes all of the new fangled technology for granted.  They won’t be oohing and aahing over a new computer that’s about to be released, or some other gadget that just came on the market like the rest of us do.  We didn’t have all the amazing gadgets that our grand-kids can get their hands on when we were kids. “The cloud” will morph into something completely different by the time they are young adults.

Quite frequently on any given weekday night, around Miss Madison’s bedtime I will receive a “FaceTime” call on my phone. This is the iPhone version of a video call.  The call normally starts out with Madison making some sort of silly face into the phone.

2015-02-26 11.43.37

This is a typical example of how our video call will start

Then she will finally say “Hi Grandma”.   I’ll ask her what she had for dinner, or she’ll have something “important” to tell me about her dog, Daisy.  We’ll chat for a few minutes, I mean seconds and then she usually gets distracted or she just hangs up on me with no warning.  Madison is an expert at pressing that “red” button to hang up on me.

Evan on the other hand loves to have his Face Time calls all to himself.  He really does not like to share this calling time with his baby sister.  He loves to talk and say hi to anyone and everyone in our house.  We always humor him and pass the phone around so he can talk to all of us. Sometimes he will have something to tell us, maybe a joke or something about his friends he needs to share.  Then there are other times when he  simply just  wants to say “Hi”.

Here’s a few of my favorite Evan “selfies”.  I usually find these on my phone or computer after he has gone home.

2013-10-03 19.02.51-1

21-2013-02-11 08.49.19

IMG_0608

FaceTime is a great way for the grand-kiddies to stay connected to their Pop-Pop while he’s away on a business trip too.  Plus it’s nice for Pop-Pop to chat with them when he can.  It always helps him feel more connected to home while he has to be away.

If video chatting is new to your technology world use it often.  It’s nice to be able to say hi to long distance relatives, or your husband who travels frequently for his job.  In my opinion it’s a great way to stay and feel connected to your love ones.

What’s your favorite video chatting mode-Skype, Google Hangouts, or Facetime?

7 comments Posted in Family, Grandkiddies
« Older Entries  

  • Subscribe to Blog via Email

    Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 1,175 other subscribers

Skip to toolbar