Hard to believe, really, but within a two week span, my grandfather (mom’s dad) turned 80 and in less than two days now, my grandma (dad’s mom) turns 90. Last week, Rebecca, Spencer, Lil B and I traveled to Casper (plane to Denver, rental car to Casper) to celebrate the two huge milestones. Sitting here at 36 years old, I can’t imagine what it would be like to be 80 or even 90 years old. Both grandma and grandpa are in good health, though grandma suffers from arthritis which landed her in the hospital for over a week and my grandpa is in the early, but apparently progressing rapidly, stages of alzheimer’s. Grandma isn’t moving around too well, though better than I figured she would. And grandpa goes “distant” on us, but to me, he does a good job of being on top of things.
We were fortunate enough to see, and introduce Braelyn to, a large number of my family members. We saw my mom’s aunt Betty, my uncle Randay (whom I haven’t seen in I don’t know how many years), my cousins Jamie and Chris (Randy’s daughter and son), Tom and Janice (kinda like aunt/uncle, but not really), my cousin Heather and her husband Dale along with their kids Christian and Justin, my aunt and uncle Fred and Lynda (Lynda is my mom’s sister), my cousin Jason and his wife Dawne, along with Madison (daughter) and newborn Luke (one month younger than Braelyn), plus my absent cousin Josh’s daughter Karleigh (doubt I spelled that right). Also saw my dad’s cousin Mike Elledge and wife Judy, friend and baseball teammate from way back Tony Cerullo (who’s grandma Betty lives with my grandpa now). Tony’s wife, their kids, Tony’s brother Adam, and parents including Geno whom I haven’t seen in forever. Of course, my sisters Wendy and Stephanie were both there, along with their spouses (Tony and Mike) and kids (Brandon, Nate, Courtney, Keegan from the Lecher side and Ashley and Stevie from Steph’s side). Yep, mom and dad were there, of course, as well as probably a ton of people I can’t remember right now as I type this. Tried to list as many names as I could to give some shout-outs to the family who may see this. If I left you off, let me know and I will edit and add ya, since it was purely accidental. Missed seeing, only by a day, my cousin Heidi and her kids as well as her brother (thus also my cousin) Paul. They showed up to spend some time with grandma.
Whew. Lot of family. Funny thing is at any given time, nearly all of the above were over at my parents’ house! In fact, the ‘rents parked their RV (aren’t you glad you still have it, mom?) in their back yard (redneck city!) and Heather, Dale and the boys stayed in it. Had a great time visiting and relaxing with the family. Spent a lot of time listening to Mike Elledge and Fred play the guitar every night, which ultimately broke out into song and all. Also spent a tremendous amount of time playing on Fred’s Martin Backpack guitar. Small and weird to play, but I really enjoyed it. So much so that I went to Guitar Center yesterday to get me one… but they were sold out. Oh well, maybe someday soon. Christian, who is 14 years old, and I spent a lot of time on it. Thanks to him for teaching me some things (Fred, too). We learned Jason Mraz’s I’m Yours song and Dueling Banjos from the movie Deliverance. Also learned Blackbird by the Beatles (I think) but known more to me as Dave Matthews covers it frequently. Probably spent more time hammering away on the guitar with Christian than I have in months! I am definitely reenergized from a guitar perspective. Christian, who I must say is an awesome kid, has been playing less time than me but has progressed much faster. I think it’s because he spends far more time on it than I am able to, plus he works it not only in school but often with Fred. If I had someone to “jam” (I can hardly jam) with, no doubt I would spend more time on it. Once a week with lessons (less frequent now since Scott, my instructor, is out-of-town getting married and honey-mooning) just doesn’t get me where I would love to be.
Anyway, some great hilights from the trip include:
- Seeing grandpa sing some karaoke at the bowling alley
- Two trips up to the cabin… sorry grandma didn’t make it
- Seeing grandma, at almost 90, hang till past midnight on two nights!
- Seeing my oldest sister, Stephanie, really enjoying life
- Seeing both of my sisters really get along (not that they don’t often, but they really seemed to have a good time together)
- Watching my nieces fight over holding Lil’ B
- Seeing the basement at mom & dad’s prepped for Big B to move in in less than a month while he goes to Casper College (aka Harvard on the Hill)
- Seeing my nephew Nathan really coming into his own and getting the crowd roarin’ with Karaoke — quite the country singer he is!
- Seeing nephew Keegan really growing up and becoming yet another awesome kid!
- Watching nephew Stevie take to the guitar, along with karate chopping me a bit here and there
- Seeing just how grown up my niece Ashley has become — oh, and watching her and Spencer pretend not to like each other!
- Throwing down a bunch of Fat Tire with the family (sorry Christian, you just aren’t old enough yet!)
- Witnessing my dad (and I) exercise extreme patience (not kiddin’) with all of the commotion
- Witnessing my mom, as usual, being so dedicated to her family
There was so much more to the weekend, but that is a short list of the hilights. All-in-all, it was great to see the family. It was like two family reunions combined into one. Just sorry I didn’t get to see Ron, Shelli, Paul, Heidi and kids, and Josh. Maybe at 90 & 100 I guess!
Well, Rebecca is at the gym playing raquetball with Holly (Rebecca’s first time ever) then doing some running and whatnot. Braelyn is up in bed (gonna go check on her now), Hoover is laying by my desk (surprise, surprise) and Spencer is over at a friend’s house for the night (surprise, surprise…. wonder what mischief they are up to tonight). Guess I’m gonna go relax a bit and watch the boob tube and fall asleep. Just had a few moments so thought I would blog about the last weekend. I think I have about 545 pictures almost finished uploading in the gallery (Under PLACES > CASPER > AUGUST 2008). Thankfully I didn’t take so many the camera would break, but I came close!
Cya for now,
RE
**NO BO** — **GO USA**
Oh yeah, poker on Saturday night. C’mon over!
