I have so many great memories of my grandma Fae. Even if I had days to tell you all the wonderful things about her, it still would not do her justice. She was so loving and caring. Whenever I would go over to her house I always felt loved and understood. She was a great listener and a great talker too. I could always count on grandma for a good conversation over a cold Diet Coke. If my grandma knew someone was coming over she always made sure they felt welcome. With me, she would always make sure there was a Diet Coke in the fridge, or the freezer if it was short notice. With Scotland she would always make sure she had pumpkin chocolate chip cookies on hand. No matter who it was, you could bet that she was doing something to make them feel important.
I have so many wonderful memories of my grandma growing up. When I was young I remember always wanting to sleepover at her house….probably because she catered to my every want and need. I remember sleeping in her bed with her and her always telling me bedtime stories. And if she ran out of stories, she would make some up. I also remember her always saving cardboard boxes, so that when I came over I could make Barbie houses out of them. She would help me cut out windows and doors. And she would buy fabric for curtains. On hot summer days she would help me make popsicles out of juice or buy me ice cream from the Ice cream truck.
I also will always remember the vacations we took together. Grandma would go on most of our vacations with us, even to Disneyland. Grandma was the only person who would go on the tea-cups with me, and she was always up for a churro. I remember before we went on our Mexican-Baja cruise, I was looking through Grandma’s closets and found a dress that I absolutely loved. Come to find out it was her wedding dress. She told me that if I wanted, I could wear it on our cruise….so I did. When she saw me in it all she could say was that she couldn’t believe how small she was when she got married. I felt honored to wear a dress that held so many memories for my grandma. I am sure that by the end of all our vacations, she was plenty ready to go home to peace and quiet. But whatever it was we did as a family, whether it was holidays, vacations, Sunday dinner, movies, or just hanging out, grandma was always there, and that made it even better.
My favorite memory of my grandma has to be Christmas time. Every year since my parents were married she has slept over at our house Christmas Eve and spent Christmas day with us. Growing up I always wanted to sleep in the guest bedroom with grandma and look out the window for Rudolf until we fell asleep. I can’t imagine Christmas without her.
As I got older I still loved spending time with my grandma. We would go to breakfast, lunch, or dinner. We both loved to dine out and dine well. My grandma loved a good steak or salmon, and loved to go to Applebee’s, or as she always mistakenly called it “Annabell’s”. Whenever my grandma went out she would always looked nice. She was really particular about her appearance. She loved nice clothes, perfume, and her most important item lipstick. I don’t remember a time when she went out…even if just to the mailbox….when she didn’t put on her lipstick. Whenever I would come to pick her up to go anywhere, she would always have her door open and be ready to go. She was always so considerate and never wanted to put anybody out. She loved her independence and she let people know that she could do things on her own. She definitely had spunk and was never afraid to give her opinion especially about politics and CNN.
I think that my grandma found the most joy in spending time with her two great granddaughters, Scotland and Sweden. Scotland loved to go to grandma Fae’s house, and would get upset if we drove through Washington Terrace without stopping by. Grandma would always have a little tea party with Scotland and she would let Scotland get water everywhere. No matter what Scotland did, she could never do any wrong. She would help Scotland feed the birds and water the flowers. Every time we would go over to grandma’s she would always have a new movie that she had gotten for Scotland and would sit and watch it with her. She loved my girls so much and loved to hold Sweden while she slept. I have never seen my grandma more happy than when she was spending time with my girls.
I am so glad that I got the chance to live with her for a year and a half while our house was being built. It was so good to be with her and to have Scotland get to know her. My grandma was such an amazing person and is the person that I most looked up to and will always strive to be like. She will truly be missed.
Here is Scotland Jumping into the foam pit....Sometimes there was seriously like 10 little kids in the pit at once....a little crazy.
Present opening was probably the funniest part. As you can see the kids were all right on top of Scotland. They all wanted her to open their present. So they were just shoving their presents at her. She would open one and not even get to look at what she got before the next present was in her face. Sometimes the kids would get so excited that they would just open their present for her. She was all done opening about 25 gifts in about 3 minutes.
Here is Sweden playing on the mats at the party. She was in heaven with all those kids there.
