My Favorite Days with my Grandpa

I have discovered the beauty of the Blog: When I first started this blog I really did it for my mother. She was after me for years to start one. I "yessed" her about it for a very long time until last year ~ Finally, I just did it. She was delighted! and so was my father. They loved the pictures and stories and I figured it was nice enough they both seemed to be happy with the whole thing. So, I have tried to keep it up. You see ~ I have never been the writer in the family. I have never kept a diary. For that matter, I have never even kept a shopping list. I have always been to worried about my terrible spelling, not hearing the difference in the sounds of "W" and "Wh" and 'wh'ere to use them, not knowing really where the coma should go and let's not mention my difficulties with the computer......All this held me back. It has kept me from being a writer, blogger or even organized enough to keep a list. To tell the truth my sister is the one who I always thought to be the writer and list keeper, and really knows her way around the computer. Over the past weeks......The weeks after losing my father....our Father....I found the beauty in looking back at an organized "book" of our life. I have discovered this blogging "thing" is wonderful. My family and I can go back and see the beautiful times we have had together. We can see the laughs we have had, the birthdays, births , all our celebrations and how do we forget the tears we have shed....This blog has evolved for me.....It was just something I did for my mother and now it is a simple story about a family in Good times and in Bad. Looking back I can see "It" has brought me so much joy, driven me to tears and is always a comfort. I love the fact that friends I know and friends I have never meet are generally sorry about "Our" terrible lose, rejoice in our joys and love to see pictures of our family. What a comfort this is. But........The thing is........My mother was right when she asked me to do this "thing"....My only wish is........ I obliged sooner. Shhhhhhh..........Let this be our little secret....Don't tell her I said so......She will never let me forget it. With this said, I am delighted to see that my son Stephen has been writing too: I want to keep this little paragraph he has written forever......What safer place then here:

My Favorite Days with my Grandpa

One of my first memories of working with my grandpa is when I just learned to drive

the lawnmower. I think I was 8 years old. I was not heavy enough to keep the lawnmower running. The machine would not run unless there was a certain amount of weight holding the seat down. To hold the seat down …Grandpa hooked bungee cords to the seat to keep it down that day. We cleared the yard of limbs. He would cut the limbs and I would take them away with the lawnmower and put them in a pile to Burn. When I would drive away I would turn around in attention to solute him and he would solute back to me. One of the times I turned to solute I hit a trailer that was parked in the middle of the field. The next day I learned how to fix a lawnmower bumper. That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

By: Stephen

Because of home-school there have been so many wonderful days like these for all my children. ...Days of joy and learning they ((We)) could have lost if they went to school. .......An irreplaceable relationship grew between my father, my mother and my children these past years. These are the lessons of life, gifts of relationships and love they could never learn in school.