Family Celebrations

Finding pictures of my grandparents seems to not be an easy task. That’s a funny statement for someone who loves photos, but this is also why I say take pictures with your family even if you hate having your picture taken because they’ll cherish them!

Anyway… off that rant… Last Friday would have been my grandpa’s birthday. “Would have been,” past tense, because he passed away Saturday November 13th 2010.

Circa September 2006

I was a lucky kid though… While my mom didn’t get to be a stay at home mom, I got to spend a lot of time with my grandparents. I even was lucky enough to have my great grandparents in my life (My great grandpa passed away in 1998 at 108 and my great grandpa passed away in 2002 at 101). But I got to spend a lot of quality time with my grandparents, something not everyone gets to claim. I definitely wouldn’t have traded that time for the world!

And one thing that we do in my family, which might be a little bit crazy to some people… We still celebrate their birthday. I’m sorry, these people lived and we’re extremely happy that we had them in our lives, so why not celebrate their birthday?!?! They are every bit a part of the reason I’m here today!

Now my grandpa and my great uncle (who passed away when I was in junior high) always claimed that the best meals were 45+ miles away from home. Depending on the day of the week grandpa’s birthday falls on, we don’t always get to travel off, but this year it was on a Friday. I made special arrangements to get Tbug a bit early, we went to my parents house and did chores for my dad, waited for him to get home from work, loaded up in his truck, went to pick up my grandma, and off to dinner we went.

Dad chose the Hanger Kafe. This needs to be noted that dad chose as my dad doesn’t often choose where we’ll eat.

We’d all heard about it and wanted to give it a try, so why not?

It was perfect because their ceiling decor had airplanes, my grandpa was a belly gunner in WWII, so sure, it totally fits. (Make the connection, please. I’m not totally crazy on the connection, right? ha!)

If there is one thing to know about my grandpa (there’s many, but go with me), he LOVED Chicken Fried Steak. When we were looking over the menu my dad and I both noticed that there was Chicken Fried Steak. I had decided on having that when dad mentioned that he was having it in honor of my grandpa since he’d always order that. I just grinned. I had the same thoughts. Hubby went with the Chicken Fried Steak as well.

It was good. It made it even better eating it in honor of grandpa. It also came with mashed potatoes and either white or brown gravy. And Peas and Carrots. So shame on me, I wasn’t going to get the veggies because I don’t like peas and I prefer carrots raw, but I got them for Abug. She didn’t like peas either but she and I both ate the carrots.

Tbug got the Swiss and Mushroom burger. She said it was very good and Abug helped her eat her french fries. (want to laugh, I was typing so fast I said french fires… yup let’s eat some french fires… ha!)

I spent all day trying to get ahold of my grandma, I wasn’t able to get her on the phone until almost 4:30. She said that she’d eaten a huge lunch so she went with unlimited trips to the salad bar and chili.

Like I said, maybe we’re weird for celebrating their birthday, but you know what, it is in their honor and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Happy Birthday Grandpa! I miss you every day!