Monday, September 10, 2007

Family time and birthday celebration

We had a nice weekend starting with Aaron's brother, Bryan (hi Bryan!), coming in to the Kansas City airport and staying with us Friday night. We had dinner at Jazz, a new cajun restaurant close by, and had some good food. Bryn ate fried alligator (and lots of it) - go figure. I can't get her to eat a ham sandwich or a hamburger, but she'll eat alligator. Gotta love it.

Our neighbor cut down a couple of scrawny trees in our backyard and a huge overhanging limb for us on Saturday morning, so we are now officially ready for our fence. Our neighbor then proceeded to cut the grass seed into our yard and water for us when we were gone on Sunday - can't beat that for good neighbors, can you?!?

We headed to Manhattan for Grandmother's party and had a nice time catching up with Kristen and Adam (Aaron's cousins), Uncle Don and Aunt Shirley and Aaron's parents. Grandmother's bash was on Sunday afternoon and over 100 people came. We were all pretty tired by the time it was over, but it was a nice celebration of 90 years of life of an amazing woman. I must admit it was bittersweet for me as it was the first time I saw Grandmother's new room and finally had to realize that she just isn't able to do all the things she used to do due to her lack of short term memory. She is exactly where she needs to be, but after volunteering at nursing facilities a lot in college I just am having a hard time picturing such a vibrant and wonderful woman in the same space with all of the other people I used to visit. She is well taken care of and still is her agreeable self, but I would be lying if I said it doesn't make me a little sad to not see her in her apartment with her pile of knitting close by.

3 comments:

Debi said...

So Bryn found a food she likes, huh? Probably can't find alligator at the local grocery store though, can you?

Glad you all had such a nice time!

Anonymous said...

LOL, too funny! I tried it once in honey mustard. Not my favorite thing.

Glad you had a nice time!

Karen Hossink said...

100 people??? That's wonderful. Although her short term memory is lacking, I hope she was blessed to have so many people there to celebrate with her.
We had a much smaller gathering for my grandma's 90th, but it was a great time.
BTW, we have another praying mantis an if this one lays an egg sac, do you know of a safe way I could ship it to you? The kids already agreed they'd like to give it to you.