A Trip Down Memory Lane

We went to get our family pictures taken today. Finally!! We were supposed to have them done before Christmas last year, because that was going to be what Mike's whole family exchanged as Christmas presents. Yeah... um. Didn't happen. But we finally got it done!! We went to Wally World, and the lady who took our pictures was very nice, and understanding, and great with the boys. She was older, and had trouble lifting them up sometimes, but they loved her antics to get them to smile.

Griffin kept acting like he was going to jump off of the "picture platform," so she was thoroughly freaked out by the time we were done, but she said that all in all, they were some of the easiest kids she had taken pictures of. Yeah. Right. They probably say that to all of the parents. But the boys were good, for the most part. They only tried to climb up on the "picture stools" (which they were strictly forbidden from doing, lest the picture lady get fired) a few times, and Griffin knocked Sammy off of a wooden bench once and made him cry, but other than that, they were really trying to reign in their enthusiasm and behave.

When we were done, we all went to McD's to play and have lunch. There were a little girl and boy there playing, and we got to know them pretty well as Mike chased them screaming and yelling through the tubes in the PlayPlace. Fun stuff! Mike is tired. Sammy also got to be "The Monster" and chase all of the kids as well. For some reason, Sammy is often cast as "The Monster" or "The Bad Guy" or "The One To Run Away From." Since he is usually the smallest, I don't really understand this, but I think it may have something to do with the fact that he is the least likely to actually catch the kids running away from him. The downside to having him be "The Chaser" is that he generally loses interest in the game at hand very quickly, and will wander off to do his own thing while the other kids are still running away from him. Then everyone becomes thoroughly confused, and they will start to look for Sammy and remind him that he was chasing them. "Oh yeah," says Sammy, and wanders off again.

Oh well. It was fun while it lasted. All 2 1/2 minutes of it. Maybe it IS true, that a child's attention span is as old as their age!

An update on Diamond: She is doing okay, but had been having tummy troubles yesterday from the antibiotic she has been taking for the past few days. I haven't talked to Bonnie to see if Diamond's little stomach was settled yet, or if they will switch her antibiotic. Her face is healing nicely, though, and there haven't been any complications from the actual bites. Pray for Bonnie, though, as she is trying to get all of the loose ends tied up that result from an animal attack on a child. It is a tedious process, and yet time sensitive at the same time. I won't go into all of the details on here, but suffice it to say that it has been very stressful, emotional and heartwrenching for their family.

My grandma will be moving here at the end of August! Well, not HERE, but only about 45 minutes away from here, instead of 3 and 1/2 hours away. Yay!! But speaking of emotional processes, she is in the process of packing, giving away and moving 30 years worth of "stuff" that accumulates when you live in the same house for that long. She and her husband built the house she lives in now, and it is full of memories for her, and also for the rest of the family.

For me, it is the only house that has been a "constant" the entire time I have been alive. Every year, the family would go there for Thanksgiving, eat a big dinner, rest a bit and watch TV, and then bundle up and go outside to collect hedgeapples that had fallen from trees around Grandma's acreage. We collected them in a little red metal wagon, and then we'd all gather at the neighbor's fence, which was surrounded by trees, and throw them as far as we could into the neighbor's yard. (The neighbors were okay with this arrangement, by the way.) It was one of those family traditions that you wish would stay the same.

Grandma would have a puzzle set up on a table in the living room, and there was usually a little group of people sitting around it working away. We would all watch It's a Wonderful Life, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Charlie Brown Christmas, and Garfield Christmas on TV on Thanksgiving night, and then all of us kids (there are 6 of us, although 3 of us have children of our own now) would pile into our sleeping bags on the living room floor and whisper and giggle our way to sleep.

In the morning we would wake up to toast, coffee, juice, cereal, scrambled eggs, little sausages, and homemade pumpkin and banana bread. I always loved breakfast at Grandma's! Then people would either head home, or sometimes we would get to stay for an extra day.

My sister and I spent a week at Grandma's house every summer for several years, too. We sewed our own dresses, played the piano in the piano room, learned how to do latch hook, and threw a big "wiffle ball" back and forth over Grandma's garage roof. We also loved to go for walks in the tall grass that grew in the "field" on her land that she would mow a path through every year. We would come inside and do a "tick search" when we were done.

Christy would inevitably end up with a bloody nose at least once every summer at Grandma's house. The air is a lot drier there than it is where we live. We would go to the library and rent movies, and sometimes even go watch one at the theater. I can remember one time when we went to see a movie, and I had a really bad headache, and Grandma sat there and rubbed my hand to make the headache go away. She said there was a pressure point in there somewhere. It certainly took my mind off of the headache, anyway! I don't remember the movie at all, but I remember that.

Yes, there are a lot of memories in Grandma's house. I will take some pictures when I go sometime in the next few weeks. Mike and I will be making a trip up there soon (without the boys!) to help out with the moving process a bit, and bring home some things that Grandma won't need or doesn't have room for in her new place.

Wow, I just took a trip down memory lane there. I have been writing for over an hour! I should probably go feed my family dinner. The boys are playing happily outside, as I watch through the window. It has been very hot today, so they won't be out there long, but they love to be outdoors!

Okay, time to get off the computer!