Monday, January 21, 2013


Grandpa and me at the Balloon Fiesta

When I was a little girl I lived in Albuquerque. We watched the Balloon Fiesta every fall (a tradition I would love to share with my girls someday). We played in a dusting of snow every winter and hiked the Sandia mountains in the summer - or at least that's how I remember it. We were also 800 miles from "home" in Kansas City, and since Al Gore was still in the beta phase of his marvelous interweb invention, we could only hear from family with an occasional (and expensive) long distance call or letter. A Valentine's Day box of "Someone in Kansas City Loves Me" sweatshirts arrived in February, a box of Topsy's came every Christmas, a huge shipping box of wrapped birthday gifts arrived right on time for each of us kids' birthdays, and the twice-a-year visits to and from Kansas City were treasures on the calendar.

I don't know if it was the long time away from them, or my being the oldest grandchild, but I quickly grew to absolutely adore my Grandparents, and I still do. Maybe everyone does. They probably do.


This weekend we celebrated my Grandpa's birthday. I suppose he wouldn't mind me telling you he is turning 84. {My sister thought it was still 2011 so in her world he is only turning 82.} His official birthday is Wednesday. My Grandma's birthday is Tuesday, the day before his, she would have been 81. We used to always celebrate their birthdays together, always.


This weekend we took Grandpa to a barbecue dinner to celebrate his first 84 years. I bought him a chocolate butter cream iced cake that he was mightily impressed with, so much so that he thought I had made it, which made me laugh (a lot). The great grand kids (and a few spares) gathered around to sing him happy birthday and help blow out the candles. Then he told us stories about my Grandma, their secret to 57 happy years of marriage. He told us about Kansas City before the suburbs. He told us about his parents and how they met at a walk-a-thon. Then he told us what a walk-a-thon was.

It made me smile a lot, which is really all a girl needs or wants in life. I think it made him smile, too, I hope. Which is all I really hope to do on my 84th birthday, too.
Grandma and Grandpa ca. 1951

3 comments:

Jill said...

You brought a tear to my eye. Grandpa had a great time.

Unknown said...

I like reading your blog. ;) I'm from Poland and I'm learning English, so reading is good practise, isn't it? :)
However, I will read your blog more, it's really good. ;>

And maybe you will invite my blog, please? ;) It's polish, but there's an 'translate' option, so maybe you will enjoy reading about books. ;]


Sorry for every mistake in that comment, I'm still learning. ;)

Unknown said...

I forgot to write my adress of my blog. It's books-pal.blogspot.com ;)