Grandma and Grandpa

We didn't buy a car on Friday - Phew. We went to Carmax and met the nicest car salesman, I'm guessing the nicest one in existence. He sat us down at his desk, and talked about the best times of year to buy new cars, and car loans, and selling cars. I learned a lot. It was all rather providential I think.

I was reading my cousins blog this morning, and she had some of her favorite memories of Grandma & Grandpa Reynolds, and I starting thinking of my own, so I decided to type them out.

I remember when they would come visit us in Nevada, and they would drive their truck pulling their trailer, and usually stop along the way to go fishing. My mom usually didn't let us get in their trailer, so I thought it was magical.

My grandma had a cupboard under her stove that she always had crackers in for us, her favorites were the little tiny ritz cracker sandwiches with cheese whip in the middle. I think it was also from her cupboard that I developed a love of chicken-in-a-biscuits.

I remember Grandpa always said "Hey Turkey" when he would see one of us little ones coming, and I thought it was so funny. I remember choosing books from magical built in bookshelf just with kids books on it, and him reading them to me. Above the books were a game cupboard, and when we would come visit Grandma often had a new game in their for us. One of my favorites was this fishing game, you had a little boat you would move around a lake and draw fish cards of different types and sizes of fish.

They had a beautiful, huge garden in their backyard. Every morning Grandpa would work in the vegetable garden and Grandma in her flower beds. Their yard was huge and always meticulously groomed.

When I was reading Brittney's blog she wrote about eating breakfast with Grandpa, and I laughed, because I always thought that was only my special Grandpa thing. I would wake up at 5:30, and go downstairs, and Grandpa would be cooking his breakfast. Until the Dr. told him he needed to start eating oatmeal for breakfast he made the same thing almost every day - One fried egg, a couple pieces of bacon, and hash browns. I can remember watching him peel and grate the potatoes, and how long they took to cook, because he always cooked them on med-low. I remember talking politics with him, even though I really knew nothing at all about them. I mostly just repeated what he had just said like I had thought it myself.

It was very sad to me when he stopped getting up and making those breakfasts.

When I was a young teen she would have my dad drive us down and drop us off in the morning on his way to work, and we would help with house cleaning and yard work. The main job I had was carrying her vacuum up and downstairs because they had a really heavy vacuum and she couldn't get it up and downstairs very easily.

I lived with my grandma on and off starting at 16. I wish I helped her nearly as much as she helped me. I have so many good memories of my time there. Our usual daily routine of me coming home from work, she would have dinner out, we would eat, clean up, go sit in the living room and watch her shows while we crocheted or did hand sewing things.

My Grandma always made me feel like I could do anything.

I miss her so much.