Bittersweet Holiday

It was a quiet Saturday... I had plans to eat breakfast with my gramp and do some shopping with the girls, but everyone was pretty much snowed-in, so we just hung out at home.

February 13th is a date that will always weigh heavy on my heart... 2 years ago, I said good-bye to my granny the day before Valentine's Day. She was 67 years old. The day she left, I was heart-broken and my world was shattered. Granny and Gramp had 6 kids and plenty of grandkids and great-grandkids... We are all so close, I honestly did not know how we could go on without her.





Growing up, my grand-parents were this stable rock that I anchored myself to. Our home life wasn’t always so perfect, but we constantly had Granny and Gramp right there when we needed them. Their house is one of my “happy places”… where when I walk in the door, it just feels like home.





Granny’s life was transformed by Christ. She was the person who I considered my spiritual leader. She was able to explain Scripture in a way that was so easy to understand and it was never just “ritual” or “religion” to her.


Jesus was the love of her life, her best friend and confidant. The light she radiated from her faith made me want to be closer to Him.


She wasn’t always so faithful… she had problems with depression and other things when she was younger, but by the grace of God, she grew into the most joyful, beautiful person I have ever met. That is what inspired me; knowing that God can come in and change a person’s heart and free us from our destructive thoughts and actions.


That His love is bigger, stronger than anything we are going through.




I still miss her so, so much.


But I know that she isn’t missing this world. She wouldn’t change a thing. I am no theologian or anything… I don’t know exactly what heaven will be like, but the thought of Granny holding baby Evie until I make it Home makes me smile.


(Granny and me)



Thankfully, because Granny was an artist her entire adult life, we get to see her around us every day in her paintings. We used a lot of her paintings in Evie's slide show... I am so, so proud of her work.





Her last paintings were of the 6 days of Creation...

This is one of my favorites: the 4th day




This one is the 3rd Day

You can see some of her other paintings here: WandaLocke.com




These are a few of my favorite pics of her:

Granny(front) as a little girl with her mom and sister:



Granny as a teen:


My mom, me, and Granny the Christmas we announced our engagement:




I love this pic because it is of a regular Sunday after lunch... my family had worked on this huge puzzle all afternoon, and they finally finished and were missing one single piece. Granny let 'em search high and low... then she finally pulled the missing piece out of her pocket... she laughed and laughed. =)




Granny and Gramp with our twins (their great-grandsons):




I miss Granny's laughter and our conversations... but I take comfort in the fact that she is with her Savior.


I hope everyone takes advantage of the time they have with their grandparents... Tell them you love them and appreciate everything they do!! =)






Philippians 1: 20-21 20... according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. 21For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Comic Relief

One 2 Try, Hearts Make Families and Midday Escapades are hosting Friday Follow # 5! I am looking forward to finding some new good reads =)


One of my favorite bloggers, Kelly at KellysKorner is hosting, Show us your Life--Valentine Dates or Ideas.

As I was reading some of these great Valentine posts, I thought I would share a little tid' bit about me and goose's whirl-wind romance... this story cracks me up, although he would say it was not so funny =)

Scene: Goose and I in my explorer in the driveway of his parents house (where he lived at the time).


We were having one of those newly-dating, talk-for-hours-about-everything, confess-our-deepest-secrets type of nights. It was probably around midnight when Goose says "I love you" for the first time. I say it back and it is all lovely and romantic and what-not...


When it was about time for me to head home, Goose (sitting in the drivers seat) tries to start the explorer. The battery is dead (apparently sitting in a driveway for 3 hours with the radio on will do that).


So Goose gets out.


He decides okay, I'll just hook it up with jumper cables and we will be good to go.



I am still sitting in the passenger seat as he reaches in through the drivers side window to pop the hood.




Yeah so... he popped the emergency brake instead.




His parents driveway goes down-hill...



towards the house.




Crash.




That was me... in my truck....


right into the garage.



I, of course, laughed because it was such an random thing to happen, and that is what I do when I experience absurdity.



Goose, on the other hand, was just a little upset. He actually squatted down with his head in his hands and I think he might have been rocking back and forth saying, "oh no, oh no, oh no..." (or some other phrase I won't write here)



He finally gets up and gets in the truck (okay, apparently the battery wasn't completely dead because it started up)... he pulls the explorer backward out of the garage door/side of the house...and it makes this horrible screeching noise and pieces of splintered wood and stone fall all over the place.


His parents (whose room is right above the garage) amazingly didn't even wake up.



My truck wasn't messed up too bad, so I left and Goose slept on the couch so he could catch his mom before she went outside the next morning and explain why there was an explorer-shaped hole in the front of her house...



His parents took it pretty well (although I think it was a few weeks before I came by again).



It ended up costing a couple grand to fix the garage, but thankfully their home-owners insurance covered it.


There were a few extra dents in my truck, but at least I will never forget the first time we said, "i love u" =)





P.S. I am still working on Part 2 (the engagement story) I gotta get some pics scanned in for that one...




Happy Friday!

The Story of Us: Part One

I am not the “mushy, romantic” type, but hey, it’s almost Valentine’s day and I thought I’d be cliché. =) (For the record, I kinda think Vday is a ridiculous holiday)


Anyway, this turned into such a long post that I decided to split it up into parts. (It was really fun to write).

Part One: A Dating Story

I met Goose when we both started working as servers at the same restaurant. I was 18 and he was 22.(By the way, Goose is a nickname he has had since high school. Him and a friend were called goose and maverick).


Honestly, My first impression of David/Goose- NOT good. It was definitely not love at first sight.


Okay … number 1: he wore high-water pants… like, he seriously had the same pair of jeans for 6 years and he never updated even though his legs grew 3 inches. (of course, his excuse was that they were only work pants, and why would he buy a new pair of jeans just to wait tables. Whatevs.)


He also had shaggy jet-black hair (that he dyed himself) and pork-chop sideburns. He wore a bandanna in his back pocket and chucks (this was before they were trendy).






Before we became friends, my family came to eat at the restaurant one day, and my mom, aunt, and granny seen David and said…


“oooo, who’s that?”


I think my exact words were, “Ugh, that’s just David. He is such a dork.”



They thought he was just oh, so cute. Mom still says she knew we were going to end up together.


I say, yeah right.


Anyway, our first one-on-one conversation was outside on the curb next to the restaurant. He launched into this insane story about him and his friends and I looked at him like he was nuts (I think it involved a power outage).


After that conversation, I remember thinking to myself…. Hmmm, this guy is kind of interesting.


I was all “anti-dating” at the time… so we just started hanging out as friends.


This is our first picture together... (let's not even go there about my hair).





The more I learned about him, the more I liked. He had the same friends since forever, a really tight-knit group (they all met in youth group). Him and his bffs used to sit up at waffle house until like 5 in the morning just hangin out, playin cards (or other ridiculous games). At first I thought this was really weird, but then after hanging out a few times with them, I saw the appeal.


They were all in a rock band called Anthem, and the first time I went to see them play I was blown away (what is it about a guy that can play an instrument??).

Grown-up Anthem (goose is in the back-middle)

But I realized he wasn’t exactly the “musician” type of guy (not meaning that in a bad way) but he is totally left-brained: very logical, down to earth, responsible, and really book smart.



Then, I found out that he had been in college for computer networking and I was like, "Whaaaaat? You? Really?"


He loved computers.


So basically he was this dorky, cool, smart rocker with a thing for technology.

I think what really attracted me to Dave was that he was very laid back and completely unpretentious. I have never seen him try to be something he is not, or try to do something stupid to impress someone else. Even when I made fun of his clothes, or his ridiculous pork-chops, he just laughed. He hardly ever drank, he wasn’t a “partier” which was completely different from the guys I was used to hanging out with (I was a disaster as a teen but that is a story for another day). He had high standards and strong moral values. He was completely secure and comfortable with who he was. That is a quality I was so envious of then (and still am sometimes).


We finally started dating and somewhere over the next few months we both fell… hard.


The best part was that we had the same sense of humor, so we just laughed and laughed and laughed.


Our first kiss was on memorial day in my explorer in the waffle house parking lot (classy). He also said I love you for the first time in my truck (hmmm, maybe that is why I don't ever want to get rid of it...)

We were complete opposites... but it worked.

Stay tuned for PART TWO: The Proposal Story... (guess who asked who to marry them?)