Monday, July 23, 2012

What are some of your favorite memories with your grandparents?

 I've already received a few emails from our Ohio family, retelling me today's events. (I keep those emails in a Word file so that I have a chronological capture of so many of our memories. I suggest you do that with any emails you get from special relatives in your lives. Mine dates back to 2004 and it's awesome!)

Apparently, the day started off with PaPa Don warming up his old bod in his hot tub. He was enjoying the quiet while Grammy began breakfast and laundry. (It's Monday after all.) My mom/Grand was showing. As PaPa Don soaked in the warmth of his hot tub, he casually wondered where Little K and her sidekick cousin C were. "Seconds later decked out in their bathing suits, they were at the tub, and  ready to go," he said.

Later, the two young girls and their PaPa Don ventured to the garden in the backyard. For years, I helped PaPa Don pick the pea pods from the vine & sang a special "pea picking" song that the great gardener wrote. One year (like this one), we had no peas to pick upon my visit to Ohio so PaPa Don had to write a new song. I'm told the girls sang this one today as history repeated itself again.

"This summer I went to Ohio.
I went there to help PaPa pick peas.
The rabbits arrived there before me.
Dig taters 'cuz there ain't no peas.

Taters, taters,
Dig taters 'cuz there ain't no peas!"

Digging potatoes there is much more of an adventure than you might think. When you find a huge one, you yell "MONGO!" When you find a small one that one be good for a pot of soup, you yell "SOUPER!" There was a lot of "MONGO!" screaming today, although I'm not sure the girls adhered to the size policy. :-)

Ah, yes, we're a colorful bunch but we have GOOD stories to tell. At left, Little K and Cousin C show off their bucket of white and red potatoes. Good thing my girl is Irish!

Later, Grand took the girls on a walk down the street to the pond, where they could feed the fish. It's a stark difference from the hustle and bustle of Houston. It's a bit cooler too but not much. 

Looking at these pictures, I remember the time I took my aunt's dog down to this same pond. At the time, there were ducks there. The dog decided he needed to go after the ducks but, unfortunately, I was at the other end of the leash.

Suffice it to say, I ended up in the pond, soaking wet, with only one "Jelly Shoe" on a foot. The other was lost at sea.

Overall, it looks like they're having fun together. 

I hope this encourages you to go out and do something similar with the little ones in your lives. You don't have to spend a lot of money to create wonderful memories with your loved ones. I think you just need an adventurous spirit and a willingness to get your hands a bit dirty. 

What are some of your favorite memories with your grandparents? Great grandparents? Add a comment to this blog post to share your ideas.

Until the next nap time...

1 comment:

Amy said...

My matenal grandmother taught me to ride a bike! After many failed attempts with my dad, she came for a visit and we knocked it right out. She taught me to skip, too. My cousins and I found a stack of Playboys in my grandfather's closet. :-) We used to go to their house for Christmas a lot and we could always hear Santa's slighbek=lls there, which made us go right to "sleep". We never heard them anywhere else, though! My other grandparents lived in the country and had a cellar - the first one I ever saw. Not that I ever actually went in it - too scary! They had a bull (complete with ring in his nose) on their property, too. It was considered great sport to steal a cousin's shoe and throw it over the fence so they had to go in with the bull to get it. Those of us at the "kids table" in the kitchen would put the food we didn't like in the gap in the table where the extra leaves joined. We really thought we were hiding it - I can't imagaine what gunk my grandmother cleaned out of from the middle of that table! I hope my C has wonderful memories of her grandparents!