Claim to Fame

(These are my grandparents at their lake house near Chicago)

My Grandparents have 7 children.

Years ago, he related a story that had happened to my Grandma while he was speaking at a church meeting...

My Grandma was taking all 7 kids out and loaded them all on the bus.

The bus driver asked,

"Are these all yours lady, or is this a picnic?"

She responded,

"They're all mine, and it's no picnic."

Vaughan J. Featherstone heard the my Grandpa tell the story.

Years later, he wrote a letter to my Grandpa asking him if he could re-tell that story in a talk that he was going to give in church.

Of course, my Grandpa agreed.

During the Saturday Afternoon session of General Conference,

Elder Neil L. Anderson told the same story, that he had heard from Elder Featherstone.

So...my Grandparents are famous!

LOL

 

I love that story.

Sometimes I feel like I have my hands so full with 3 crazy boys.

My Grandparents had 5 crazy boys and 2 girls.

They also had 3 boys first also.

I guess I'm following in their footsteps :)

(You should have seen the look on Nate's face when I suggested that we have 7 kids LOL)

He felt like the only good part of that idea was that it would give him and excuse to buy a 9 passenger suburban.

I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens :)

Do You Know Where You Come From?

For the last little while, I've been thinking a lot about where I come from.

I'm lucky enough to have all of my grandparents still around.

But it makes me sad to think that one day, my kids will consider my grandparents

"ancestors".

I don't know if they will ever remember them, or anything about them.

So, I've been really trying lately to gather stories and information about my grandparents before they are gone.

So...I put together this picture collage on our dining room wall.

It's the past (my grandparents and their families)

The present (me & Nate)

The future (my kids)

I just started by collecting frames at thrift stores and painting them or staining them to match.  I put my family (me & Nate & the kids) in the middle, and just built around it.

As I started asking for pictures from my grandparents, I discovered all kinds of pictures and stories that I would have never known otherwise.

This is my Grandmother...Beth.

She is my mom's mom.

She is an artist...a painter.

This picture was taken when she was 16.

This is my Grandfather on my Dad's side, John, as a baby with his family in Germany.

He moved to the United States from Germany when he was a child.

This is my mom's dad, my Grandpa Roy.

He built a hotdog shack on Venice Beach when he was 18 and his whole family worked at it.  This is him with his parents.

This has been a really fun project, and an adventure.

Hopefully, one day, it will be a treasure for my kids.

It's still a work in progress, but I love how it's going so far.

Do you know where you come from?