Happy 87th Birthday Gram

My Grandma turned 87 and we celebrated in Pittsburgh this past weekend. Jessa and John hosted a BBQ in honor of Grandma. John was the man by the grill and Jessa put together a memorable gift for our Grandma - all the grandkids wrote a favorite memory about Grams accompanied with favorite pictures of all of us.

Here are Brian and my memories.

BRIAN'S:
First time I met your grandparents was when Julie and I took a trip up to visit them when we had just started dating. It was a great experience -- my mom was living at the time and we spent a couple of days with your grandparents and then hurried back to celebrate my mom's birthday. I remember telling her this story and she laughed.

Julie had told her grandparents that we would be visiting and to prepare a list because we were coming up to do work. Boy, when we arrived did we have a list! Garden, weed, till, prune, put down black plastic in garden, cut bushes, plant veggies, etc. Well, your grandma had asked if we could trim the 75 yards or so of Forsythia bushes that lined the driveway and that hadn't been trimmed for quite some time. It was July, it was hot and these things were overgrown. So, being the urbanized guy that I am I posed a simple question, "Happy to help. Where's the electric hedge trimmer?" Your grandma looked at me like I had nine heads, handed me a pair of hand pruners and said , "Oh, Brian, we don't have a hedge trimmer, we trim the Forsythia bushes by hand." I remember turning to Julie and saying, "Is she serious? She can't be serious!" Well several hours later and after working through approximately 3-4 bouts of heat exhaustion/stoke, we finished trimming those damn Forsythia bushes by hand.

MINE:
Jessa and I went on a whirlwind trip in the summer of 95 with Grandma and Grandpa. I believe we visited 5 to 6 colleges and places where Grandma grew up. We drove from Pittsburgh to all over the mid west. We had a wonderful time visiting everything, everyone and spending time with Grams & Gramps. And after many hours in a car, there are things you pick up on and remember very vividly.

Grams would point out "skylines" throughout the entire trip - trying to get us to pay attention and appreciate what was out there. Even when you could barely see the skyline, she would say, "Girls, look how beautiful that skyline is?" From cityscape to countryside, Jessa and I got to appreciate every skyline you could see. It kind of became a little joke between Jessa and I, but to this day, every time I see a city Skyline or a beautiful sunset, I think of Grams pointing them out to us on that trip.

Happy Birthday Grams!