48 Years of Love and Hard Work

          Sixty-eight years ago today, my grandfather, Joel Oscar, married his blonde haired, blue eyed sweetheart, my grandma, Essie Lavern.  She was a young and beautiful fifteen year old bride who donned a pale blue dress.  He was a handsome young man of twenty-two, dressed in his best suit.

          When my grandpa asked for my grandma's hand in marriage, her father told him that he was the one in charge of, "finishin' her rearin'".

   

(Great-grandpa Wesley Angelo with my great-uncle)

          It was a warm Sunday afternoon when they started their life together.  The sun was shinning through the tall, oak trees as the gently swayed in the warm summer breeze.  After church the two of them met at the preachers small, country home, along with their closest and dearest family and friends.  Standing in the entry way of the preacher's humble home, they said their vows, were announced husband and wife, and kissed for the first time.  After the wedding, a small reception was held in my great-grandfather's front yard.  That evening, my grandpa took grandma to church for the evening service.  Thus began their forty-eight years together as husband and wife.

          Together they raised seven children, five boys and two girls, chickens, horses, cows, and pigs.

(Uncle David)

          She baked him biscuits for breakfast every morning, and he took her to church every Sunday.

(My uncle Larry and Aunt Helen)

    

          Their home was filled with love and laughter and grandma's good cooking.

          As their children grew older and started families of their own, their home was filled with laughter and toys again.

(Christmas presents Christmas 1959)

          All in all, they were blessed with five granddaughters, eight grandsons, one angle granddaughter, ten great-grandsons, five great-granddaughter, and one angle great-grandbaby.  Grandma cooked breakfast and dinner for her large and growing family every Saturday.

(Grandma with two of her great-grandchildren Christmas 2013)

         As the years past, a life of hard work began to stoop Grandpa's back and tighten his joints.  Over tine, Rheumatoid Arthritis placed him in a wheelchair, and eventually confined him to his bed.  Grandma was his faithful nurse, always by his side.

(Grandpa and I)

          After forty-eight years of marriage, full of love and hard work, children and biscuits, my grandpa passed away.  My grandma wore her wedding ring for fifteen more years, until she passed it, along with all of the memories of it held of Grandpa and his love and hard work onto me, on my sixteenth birthday.

4 facts about the 4th on the 4th

1. Even though Thomas Jefferson gets all of the credit for the Declaration he wasn't the only author.  He was just the primary one.  The Continental Congress appointed five men to do the job.  The other were: John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman, and they were the ones that appointed Jefferson the primary author.  Adams and Franklin did make a few additions however.
2. Did you know that six Founding Fathers signed both the Declaration and the U.S Constitution.  They were: Benjamin Franklin, George Clymer, Robert Morris, George Reed, Roger Sherman, and James Wilson.
3. Did you know that nine signers died before the Peace Treaty of 1783 was signed to officially end the Revolution.  They were:  Button Gwinnet, John Hart, Joseph Hewes, Philip Livingston, Thomas Lynch Jr., John Morton, George Ross, Richard Stockton, and George Taylor.  
4. Did you know that Thomas Jefferson and John Adamswere the two final surviving signers.  They both died on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration in 1826.  Adams last words were "Jefferson still survives."  Thomas Jefferson however had died five hours earlier.

Happy Independence Day!

30 things that i learned in the 30 days of june

1.     Wearing a knee-length skirt to go ice-skating in not a good idea.  When you fall on your bare knee it burns, really bad.

2.     Kids say the darndest things. 

My five year old cousin Fender:  I’m hungry.

Me:  Ok, what do you want to eat?

Fender: My mommy usually gives me chocolate doughnuts when I’m hungry.

Me:  Are you sure about that?

Fender:  Yep… I like chocolate doughnuts!

3.     My little brother isn’t a baby anymore.  Fourteen years old, I can’t believe it!

4.     I might be obsessed with Bible journaling

5.     It’s dark in Target when the lights go out.  I mean like can’t see your hand in front of your face dark.

6.     Chobani chocolate haze yogurt is delicious.

7.     Biology CLEP prep is a 37 week course!  So maybe I’m not going to CLEP out of Biology this summer.

8.     All clownfish are born male and the most aggressive one become the female of the bunch.  If the female dies, then a male switches his gender and takes her place.  I'm serious .We serve an amazing creator don’t we!  

9.     The F’s can keep a secret!  Thanks so much for surprising us with Hattie and Jordan’s big news.  Congratulations on the engagement, I am so happy for you guys!

10.  I have discovered how to tell my cousins 9 month old identical twins apart…have me smile at them.  Kara Lauren starts screaming and Lana Kathrine starts reaching for me.

11.  Reba and I are capable of being responsible adults.  Who knew driving into town by ourselves could be so much fun.

12.  I am an awesome swim teacher.  I got all three of my cousins back floating.

13.  Macaw parrots pull out their feathers when they get mad or stressed.  Poor Gus, he looked so pathetic.

14.  God created light and dark three full days before He created the sun, moon, and stars.  I’ve known this all of my life but I never really had thought about it.  “And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof” Revelations 21:23.

15.  Poor Reagan gets depressed when Harlie leaves her with us to dog sit.

16.  Don’t go into Walmart and expect to try on a shirt at ten o’clock at night.  It makes the lady very upset.

17.  Veggie Tales gets more and more amusing the older I get.

18.  You can give dogs a Melatonin if they get stressed during a thunderstorm.

19.  In our society today humans take nearly one trillion photos a year, which means that we are taking more photos every few minutes than in the entire nineteenth century.  

20.  Any time my sister shows me a new song, it follows me.  I mean I will have never heard that song before and after she plays it for me it will be on in every store I walk into in town.

21.  You can fix Earl Grey tea like iced sweet tea and it is delicious. 

22.  The traditional June wedding came about in the fifteen hundreds.  People would take their yearly baths in May and would wed in June while they were clean.

23.  The wedding bouquet is also from the fifteen hundreds and was carried to cover up the smell of body odor.

24.  This site is going to get me into a lot of trouble.

25.  My feet are too big to find any cute shoes.

26.  You can find anything on Pinterest.

27.   Sometimes all you can do is pray and let it go.

28.  I would rather watch cheesy TV shows from the sixties (aka. Emergency, Hawaii Five-0, Dragnet) and I blame my grandma completely. 

29.  Skirts with pockets are a rare luxury. 

30.  Never assume that cookies are chocolate chip, they might be raisin and that makes for a very nasty surprise.