I love my Grandma

It may be because I’m her first granddaughter.
It may be because I’ve always been her favorite granddaughter (in my mind at least).
My middle name is the same as hers. Marie.
She raised my Mommy with love and taught her how to be a good Woman and Mother.

My Mom Wanda with two of her brothers Tommy and Harry

She recently lost the love of her life. John.

I love how he loved her.

7 years ago, 6 out of the 7 kids in my family and our Mom flew to Oklahoma to surprise my Grandma and celebrate her 80th birthday.


We had fun.
We laughed.
We went bowling at midnight.
We ate cake.
We put a whoopee cushion under our Mother on the plane and made her jump up real quick.

It is the last time I remember my littlest brother with any kind of normalcy. I miss who he used to be.


Just after we got home, my sister’s son who was 12 at the time was diagnosed with Leukemia. He is well now, 6’ 5”ish and 19.


Now, it is 7 years later and my Grandma was just here to celebrate her 87th Birthday.
She came from Oklahoma with my Mom’s sister, Aunt Jean.


We met for lunch last week and ate ourselves sick at the Cheesecake Factory.

From Left to Right: Wanda Beck (my mom) Grandma Marie Kennedy, Aunt Jean Lipe, Angela Golsan (my sister) Me and Alicia Golsan (Angela's daughter)

Thank You waiter guy for laughing while taking this picture.

We laughed a lot and I got to sit across the table from three very strong women.

While she was here, we ate.

We laughed.

We ate some more.

We took pictures by the food we ate.

From Left to Right: Cindee Golsan (sister) Wanda Beck (mom) Marie Kennedy (grandma) Angela Golsan (sister and yes, my sisters are married to brothers... that's 19 Golsan kids between them) Me and Jean Lipe (aunt)

I love listening to my Grandma tell stories. She laughs a lot while she tells them. Stories like when she was a young Mother and had to hang my Mother in a tree to keep her safe while she went to find the cow for milk.

We gave Grandma a digital picture frame with over 350 pictures of her family. She cried.

That's my Grandma second from the right

My Great Grandparents

Grandma and her little sister

When I had to say goodbye to my Grandma and Aunt, I cried.

We are planning a trip to Oklahoma in 3 years for Birthday # 90.

My boy…. The Leader

Two weeks ago I received an email from Jensen’s 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Buck. She said that she’d selected Jensen to receive the April “character counts award” for his class. Each month the whole school works on a specific character trait and one student from each class receives an award for best displaying that trait.

The award was for Leadership.

In our house, Jensen is the youngest and doesn’t get many chances to be a leader. I’m so happy he has the opportunity to do it at school!

In the beginning of April, I asked Jensen what the character trait was for the month. He told me it was leadership then leaned in and said “I think I might get this one”.

Here he is before he saw his dad with the camera

Jensen's friend Tyler is pointing to Garth

Listening to all the other names being called....

Hearing his Name

Making his way through the crowd

Checking out the certificate and charm

Standing with Mrs. Buck (pink sweater)

Giving my baby a squeeze

Heading to class with the all the rest

Garth and I are feeling pretty proud of our Jensen!

I've got some pictures somewhere of Gordon at the same age receiving an award for kindness.  I'm going to search for one of the pictures to compare.  Should be fun.