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.

How to fold towels when you are 13

Step #1

Lay on the floor after school

Step #2

Say you "didn't hear" your Mother when she asked you to fold the load of towels in the dryer.

Step #3

Enjoy the feeling of warm towls being dropped onto you by your Mother.

Step #4

Fold the towels as only a 13 year old could.

I was laughing while taking the picture so it's a little blurry...

Pinewood Derby 2010

The Construction

The Finished Product!

In order to get the weight right, we scavenged some weights from the bottom of the curtains and glued them on the back and top of the car.  We knew we were close but not quite 5 ounces so we took some washers and the hot glue gun just in case.  We ended up just needing one washer that we glued to the bottom.

The Competition

There were some Losses

But, there were just a few more wins

Jensen's Car had a tendency to do this:

We took the three weights from the top/back of the car and re-glued them to the front and had much better luck.  Jensen's friend Luke raced his car backwards because it was faster that way!

In the end Jensen tied for 4th Place.  Not bad.

Before the race started we had lots of smiles and enjoyed watching the boys check out eachother's cars.

A Sad Morning....

Ahhh, it is a sad morning around here. My old, but much loved hot air curling brush iron thingy has died. It saved me from many days of unruly and too curly hair. Goodbye my old friend....
at least until I can get to Bi-mart.

Pioneer Woman Book Signing!

Monday night Ellen Foote and I drove to Powells Books in Beaverton to act like groupies and hopefully get our cookbooks signed by Ree Drummond/The Pioneer Woman. 

We knew it would be crowded so we left at 3:00-ish and got to Powells at 4:00.  When we went in we could see there was a line already started that wove in an "S" pattern through several rows of books.  We weren't too far back and felt pretty good about our spot in line.  At 4:30 they started handing out numbered tickets.  Ellen and I got 86 and 87.  We later heard they handed out over 400 tickets. 

Anyway, once we got our tickets we went to sit in the chairs.  There were about 200 chairs set up and it wasn't long before they were filled and people started standing all around the place.  We were about 1/2 way back. 

We had another hour and a half to wait so I was really glad we had seats.  We did have one extra seat by us that wasn't taken so a very pregnant woman was happy to get it!  Ellen and I had a lot of fun visiting with people all around us.  A lot of the people around us were talking about which recipes they've tried and which ones they liked best.  Since I had just purchased the book ($27.50) I spent some time looking through it and finding lots of recipes that I want to try.

At 6:00 when Pioneer Woman was supposed to arrive we were told that she would be a little late but was on her way.  Apparently the GPS she was using sent her a weird way.  Before long, people started standing up and clapping.  Sure enough she had arrived.  She walked right by us!! She is very pretty.

Can you see her waaayyyy up there in the front?  Sorry my iPhone pictures are all blurry!

She talked for a little bit then allowed people to ask questions.  She did say that she can't imagine what we wouldn't already know about her and to not ask how much she weighs.  Funny.  People asked all sorts of questions but the one I was most interested in was "how much time each day does she spend blogging?"

She said between being a Mom, ranch duties, cooking and homeschooling she spends anywhere from two to four hours a day, but not all at once.  She said she usually does it in half hour sections of time. 

Finally our numbers were called to get in line.  I will admit here and now that I sshamelessly promoted myself by giving her an iPhone Cozy!  She really liked the colors of the fabric I used.  My hope is that she will like it enough to mention it on blog!  Who knows.... if that happens I'll probably have more business than I can handle.  I can handle that!

All in all it was an enjoyable evening.  I'd do it again.

Thank You to the stranger that I handed my phone to for taking pictures!