Tag Archives: Grandchildren

Let Me Tell You About My Grandchildren

21 Jan

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

 

 

 KATIE

 

Fred and I have two sets of grandchildren – one set (boy and girl) from our oldest daughter, and one set (boy and girl – twins) from our youngest daughter. There is a wide age difference between the two sets – about 12 years in fact. So while they know each other, and probably like each other, they don’t really see each other that often.

Our oldest granddaughter, Katie, has complained that I have written about all the grandchildren except her! So this one is for Katie. As I think of or remember other things that have happened in her life, I will share them.

Since we moved to Florida when Katie was just a little thing, most of the time that family has come to visit during the Christmas holidays. Therefore, Katie has seen our house almost exclusively decorated for Christmas. It’s really funny to have her visit now – at a non-Christmas time and as she looks around the house and exclaim that “this is just wrong!” We have to rearrange the furniture in the living room to accommodate the Christmas tree that is placed in the center of the front windows. I guess she feels it should always be there – because that’s the way she remembers it.

They arrived one year for Christmas and I had made a different arrangement on the kitchen bar. The minute she walked in, she said, “that’s wrong! Where is the candle you usually have here?” So she got out that candle and replaced it with what I had done already. She’s a hoot!

Katie was a good student in school, and has recently graduated with a degree in Theatre Design and Management. Her specialty is stage management. And she’s very good at it! We were visiting with them last November, and were able to see a stage play that she had managed. She did the lighting and the sound, all by herself – in addition to being the stage manager! She has managed about 10 shows in the Chicago area. Five or six of them were in college, with some being the assistant stage manager, but she has managed four professionally, and is currently working two shows at the same time.

While in high school and college, she actually performed in some plays. Perhaps that’s where she felt the itch to manage. Here she is in a play. Her character was “Sadness.”

On another note, when our daughters surprised me for a late 75th birthday in Virginia last year (see my post  Surprise!)

 

 

Karen asked Katie if she was prepared to be idolized for the weekend. When Katie asked her what she meant, Karen said that her cousin, Hannah, would probably hang on Katie’s every word that weekend! And she did! It was so fun to watch.

~~~~~~~~~~To Be Continued~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Let Me Tell You About My Grandchildren Forrest~Part 2

8 Mar

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

JUDY

 

 

As I began my story about my grandchildren last time, I told you that our oldest daughter and her husband gave us our first grandchild – a boy, Forrest.1

 

Last time, I forgot to add this picture. It’s one of my favorite pictures of him and his dad.

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Karen has often said that she was just a “vessel” for her children. They both take after their dad’s side of the family. And you can really see it in this picture.

 

There was a bit of competition between us and the other grandparents. Forrest is the oldest grandchild on both sides. As a matter of fact, the other grandparents (grandpa especially) tried to get Forrest to call us “Aunt Judy” and “Uncle Fred.” So we had to correct him every time we saw him.

In mid-1990’s, Fred and I moved to Florida. Brian brought his family down that first Christmas, and of course we went to Disney. Later, the other grandpa stated that HE had wanted to be the one to introduce Disney to Forrest, but then we “went to Florida and bought the place up!” One up for the Wills side!

When he was learning his “ABC’s” we would say a word association with whatever letter he spoke. He did fine until he got to “G” – and I would say “Granny.” He would just look at me and grin – but wouldn’t say Granny. Took him quite a few years to call me that. Never did figure out what the hang-up was.

Our family has always been heavily involved with whatever church we found ourselves members of. Karen was brought up in this environment. Her husband, Brian was the son of a pastor, so he was, as well. So it was no surprise to see that family heavily involved in their church. When they moved to the Chicago area, they found a large church that they loved. Lots of good Bible study and classes for the children.

About 10+ years ago, that church decided the Lord wanted them to branch out and plant another body of believers. They began meeting – and still do – in a local high school. Karen and Brian felt the Lord leading them to be part of that new body of believers, and volunteered to help establish it. But because it was a small grouping, Forrest and Katie still attended the original church for their youth functions.

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Forrest and Katie have both been on mission trips, sponsored by this church. Forrest went on several mission trips, including one to South Africa. He loved it all.

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He is a delightful young man. When he graduated from Wheaton College, he had some choices to make about employment. But his heart was in a Christian program called Alpha (alphausa.org). It is an evangelistic program that was started in England, but has outreach in our country and others.

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There is an office near where Forrest and Alyssa live, and he accepted a job with them. They are pleased to have him, and he is delighted to be working for the company. He loves the Lord greatly.

As I said last time, we are so very proud of Forrest, and thank God for his presence in our lives. God gets all the glory for this young man.

 

 

 

 

 

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Let Me Tell You About My Grandchildren

1 Mar

SUNDAY MEMORIES

JUDY

 

FORREST

 

Okay, I hear the groans already. But I’m proud of my grandchildren and would love to 1share some of their antics with you.

We actually have two sets of grandchildren – one set from each of our daughters. And they each completed the circle with a boy and girl.

Our oldest daughter and her husband gave us our first grandchild – a boy, Forrest. They had originally thought to name him Ian Sean, but then realized that his name would, essentially, be “John (Scot) John (Irish)” and thought that wouldn’t do. So they named him Forrest.

Two weeks after his birth, the doctors discovered why he had been losing so much weight. The flap that opens between the esophagus and the stomach was closed over! He was, essentially, starving to death. So, at the tender age of two weeks, he had surgery to correct that problem. He’s not had any problems with it, since that time.

We’ve seen Forrest do some interesting things with his name: “4est” is just one of them. That was on the back of his t-shirt. I’ve seen “Forrest” with the top of the “F” curved over the remainder of his name.

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When he was quite little – even before he could read – he was playing a computer game, quite correctly, and having a great time with it.

Karen tells us that when he was in elementary school, he once told her that he was the smartest kid in the class, except for “Johnny.” When she asked why not Johnny, Forrest said, “Because I haven’t told him yet.”

This picture shows him to be a bit of a monkey – climbing everywhere.

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He was always interested in dinosaurs. He pretty much drew stick figures – like most small children – until it came to dinosaurs. Here is what he drew when he was just seven years old! Amazing!

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He was always a lot of fun to be around.

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He was, and still is, rather fussy about his hands being clean. Once when they were with us, he found a “candy” in our pantry and asked if he could have it. I told him he was welcome to have anything we had – but that particular candy had a gooey marshmallow center. He didn’t eat it. One Easter time we sent them some of those Cadbury “eggs” – you know, the ones with the gooey, runny centers. Karen told us that after he had bitten into it – and found some of that center on his hands, said. “What is THAT???!!!” and flung his hands to rid himself of that offending stuff. Fastidious.

 

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When Karen and Brian celebrated their 20th anniversary by going to Europe to re-visit where they met and fell in love, they left Forrest (16 years old) and his sister with us for the week. We took them to Disney, of course. While at EPCOT, Forrest kept asking us if we were tired, and assured us that they would be happy to go home, rest, and come back later. I finally stopped him and asked, “Forrest – did your dad tell you that Grandpa and I were old and probably got tired easily?” When he sheepishly said yes, I assured him that we do Disney all the time and exercised regularly, and we were NOT tired! We spent all day that the park.

When Forrest was 16, a 16-year-old friend of his drew this picture of him. She complained, “did you really have to wear a plaid shirt that day?” But she titled it, “Only God Can Finish the Picture.” It’s beautiful. And she really captured his essence.

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After high school, he went to Wheaton College for study. While there, he met a lovely young lady and fell in love with her. They married on July 12, 2013, and we were fortunate to be there for the event.

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They are having a wonderful time together, and we are blest to have her in this family.

We are so very proud of Forrest, and thank God for his presence in our lives.

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Christmas Miracles

15 Dec

My Take

DiVoran Lites

Last year after I got HD lenses implanted in my eyes to replace my natural lens, which had grown cataracts, the surgeon, Dr. Tresplacious said I had the eyesight of a fighter pilot.

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Well, I loved being able to see, especially colors. I told my friend, who had cataracts too, and the wonderful doctor removed hers. A month later she had to have a capsular haze removed. That’s when cataract material starts growing back. As far as I know it doesn’t often happen, but is not uncommon. She also had a shunt put in to treat the glaucoma diagnosed by this doctor. Essentially her eyesight had been saved.

My miracle is that I’ve gone a whole year without a capsular haze. Now it is happening to me, but the six months grace-time, tells me mine is growing more slowly. The scraping is a routine procedure. It doesn’t hurt because they have these great anesthetic drops they use.

In the doctor’s waiting room, I heard about another miracle. As a woman approached the chair next to mine, I admired her perfect appearance. I wanted to her how much I liked the way she looked. After all hadn’t Grandmother taught me to compliment strangers? This woman was a young seventy-five to eighty. Her hair was that beautifully striking black and white. She wore a white quilted jacket, black pants, and black pumps.

Of course, telling her how nice she looked started a conversation.

“This jacket won’t be warm enough when I go to the Northwest,” she said. She’s on her way to Washington State to be with her daughter and son-in-law. I asked if she had grandchildren.

“Yes, and I even have one great-grandchild.”

She asked if I had grandchildren. “They’re in college,” I nodded. “We saw them a good deal when they were growing up, but now they’re in college and it’s pretty much over. Can’t be helped, that’s just the way things are.

Then she told me about her miracle. He husband died on Father’s Day this year, and this will be her first Christmas without him. Even though I could see her heartbreak she kept insisting she was doing all right. No self-pity there. But here’s the miracle part. After her granddaughter had decided college wasn’t for her, she got a job at Disney. She needed a place to live until she could get out on her own, so she asked her grandmother if she could move in temporarily. They had a wonderful time together. Then the granddaughter got married, moved out and had a baby.

Next the grandson got a job at The Space Center and asked to live with her until he got settled closer to work. Now she has both grandchildren and a great grandchild on this coast instead of the other and sees them frequently.

“I expect my daughter and her husband will be moving here from Washington,” she said. Those are all the children they have.

We celebrated together. “Thanks for saying what you did about my appearance she said. It made my day.” Mine too.

You might like to look up Proverbs 31 in the Holy Bible and read it again. It’s a model of women for all ages.

Nut Cracker lake eola

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Our Grandtwins

25 Aug

SUNDAY MEMORIES

 Judy Wills

  

                                                JUDY

 

In previous musings, I have mentioned our “grandtwins.”  I would like to think that I coined that phrase, since I’ve never heard anyone else use it.  But that’s probably rather vain of me to think so.  However, they are our grandchildren, and they are twins.

Our youngest daughter and her husband went through the very expensive InVitro process to have their children.  And we are thrilled with the results of that process.  Our grandtwins are delights to our lives.  There are 15 years between our older grandchildren and our grandtwins, so I’m afraid these cousins won’t be very close to each other, and that hurts our hearts.  However, our grandtwins were both in our oldest grandson’s wedding just a few short weeks ago, and they are all quite familiar with each other.

But the birth of the twins was quite an experience – for us all.  Our daughter (Janet) called to say that the twins would probably be born within a few days via C-section, as she had developed toxemia. The twins would be born about six weeks early.  Fred immediately called and made airplane reservations for us for a couple of weeks out, staying one week.

However, we had a call from our oldest daughter (Karen), that her husband insisted that someone from the family be there for the delivery, it should be at least her, as well as me.  So Fred called and changed my reservation to the following day.  It was to be a surprise to Janet.  Janet called Fred’s cell phone as he was driving me to the airport, and was surprised to hear my voice instead of his.  She seemed quite disappointed to learn that “we” wouldn’t be coming up for another week.  When I hung up, I rubbed my hands together and said, “Oh, this is going to be GOOD!”

Karen flew in first, rented a car, and picked me up at the airport.  We, of course, got lost trying to find the hospital, just praying we would arrive before Janet was taken up to surgery and delivery of those babies.

Our arrival was such fun.  Karen and I had planned it all out on the way.  She would walk into the room first and greet her sister.  Then she would say, “I picked something up at the airport that I thought might make you smile.”  That was my cue to walk into the room.

Well, it worked.  However, Janet hadn’t seen her sister in over a year…..Karen had let her hair grow…..Janet was in pregnancy “fog”….. and she actually didn’t recognize Karen at first.  She said to herself, “I know this person.  Who is it?”  It wasn’t until Karen was at her bedside that she recognized her and exclaimed, “It’s Karen!!”  After they hugged, Karen said her prepared speech, and I walked in.  Opened mouth – Janet was speechless!  I had anticipated hugs and laughs, but instead got hugs and tears.  It was quite an emotional time.

Later, Janet was taken into surgery, and those two beautiful babies were born.  God is good.

God is with you in everything you do.

 

Genesis 21:22

 

 

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Backyard Shootout

13 Feb

A Slice of Life

   Bill Lites

Bill

 As I remember how it happened, one day several years ago, I was looking for something in our attic, when I came across an old pair of suede cowboy boots that I hadn’t worn in years.  I got them down, tried them on, and they still fit.  That prompted me to look for the really neat felt cowboy hat I had worn with those boots when I made business trips to California.  After the job was over, on my way back to Florida, I would usually take a couple vacation days and stop to see my mother and aunt in Albuquerque.  The boots and hat were always in style there and I enjoyed the casual Southwestern atmosphere that allowed me to wear my Western duds.  I had spent my growing up years in Albuquerque, and had pretty much lived in western clothes until I moved away from there when I was 18.

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With boots and hat in hand, I got out one of my best Western shirts and some Levis to see if DiVoran would remember her “Bill” of the past

2“Wow, you look great!” she said, as I strolled onto the back porch.  “All you need now is your leather jacket to complete that outfit.”  So, I went looking for it, and sure enough it did make a striking outfit, if I do say so myself.

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When our daughter, Renie, saw me wearing the hat, she wanted to see how she would look in it.  She found a vest and after much fussing with hair and clothes, she came out to show us her outfit.  “Beautiful.” I said, and told her she could wear the hat anytime she wanted to.

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It was the same with our son Billy, the next time he was over, except he wanted to try out the whole outfit.  That’s when I remembered a matched pair of fake revolvers and handmade Mexican holsters my aunt, Jessie, had given me when I was in college.  She had worn them when riding horseback in annual parades as a young woman in the 1930’s while living in Texas.

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Well, that made quite a sight, when Billy walked around our back yard pretending to be participating in “Quick Draw Shootouts” with the bad guys.  It was a Kodak moment, and as you can see, we didn’t let it get by without a photo to remember the occasion.

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Now our son, Billy, has an 18-year-old son, Jacob, and DiVoran persuaded me to give him my vintage leather jacket, so now it is in good hands.  Who knows, someday somebody else in the family may wear my cherished boots, hat, holster and jacket,

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Note:  We still have my grandfather’s denim work jacket from the 1920’s with the patches             my grandmother sewed on it.  I can’t wear it though because the sleeves are too short.

Scripture:  Isaiah 61:10

                                               

 

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Circles

23 Nov

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

“Will the circle be unbroken

By and by, Lord, by and by

There’s a better home a-waiting

In the sky, Lord, in the sky”

My family as far back as I can remember loved to sing hymns and this one was sung frequently. As a child I didn’t understand the point but last Sunday, watching my youngest grandchild’s baptism, my

heart-felt the circle of faith being completed for yet another generation. It was a wonderful and emotional. One circle was complete but soon these children will begin their own circle of faith.

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Things I Learned Today

30 Aug

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

We are blessed to be able to divide our time between the beautiful mountains of North Carolina and the tropical beauty and pleasant winters of Florida. On Sunday we kissed the grandchildren goodbye  and on Tuesday we hit the highway for Florida.       By the time we arrived I was pretty sure one of those sweet grandchildren had gifted me with a summer cold. So, at the moment I am miserable  but fortunately I have a nice piece of writing by Jacob Leitzinger tucked away for just such a time.

Things I Learned Today 

Jacob Leitzinger

 
Make the protein shake BEFORE the workout and store it in your fridge.
You ever try to open one of those “Protein Powder” things right after a workout? They make it seem like you need to be working out. They’re REALLY tough to open
Add the protein powder AFTER the milk. Otherwise, you get clumps.
And finally: working out is hard.

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