The Best Day

Today I am grateful for God's blessings.

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I just had the best day I have had all year!!!

Yesterday was my youngest grand daughter Elise's 11th birthday.  

Pam and I talked over the weekend and Pam said she would get with Elise's parents and set up the time and day I could take her out for her birthday supper.

Today was the day.

I drove over and parked at the end of the street so I could pick-up her and her little brother Alex when they got off the bus--and drive the few hundred yards up to their house.

Then I got to go in and see Pammie AND Andrew and Baby Evan--who came right to me for a hug, as did Andrew the oldest.

The lovely girl has long, skinny legs

like her Gramma, other than that, 
blond hair and blue eyes, we

do not look anything alike.

She's a homely girl, but then again, I was too at that age.

She is going to become a beautiful, blond, tall young adult.

Then, Elise and I were off, but...I had no intention of going to Red Robin for an hour of talking and supper, Oh No, not devious old gramma.

I asked Elise if she liked Pizza and then I asked her if it would be all right if, instead of eating out, we went back to my place so she could help me with a project.

"Oh yes!"  she said.

<score!>

I am getting my doll house, that our Mother made, ready to give to Susan for her birthday this Saturday. My mother made it for me when I was 4, but Susan played with it too and I figure, now it's her turn to have it in her house.  Besides, I could use the space that it takes up in my bedroom AND most importantly, I want her to have it when I die and this way, there will be no question of "who it should go to."  As each of my daughter's played with it too.

Our mother made it, it should go to my sister and then, she can pass it down to whomever she thinks should get it.  Perhaps my first great grand daughter, who knows and I will be dead, so I won't care.

Elise sat in front of the doll house and took out the furniture from each room, dusted it, handed it to me and I wrapped it in tissue paper and placed it in a box.  The small, miniature items, for each room, I put in small, brown paper envelopes.

Elise had a ball looking at each tiny little thing.  Her mother made her a doll house also when she was 6, but of course, her brothers trashed it, which I knew would happen and is one reason I DID NOT give Jen (although she hinted) this doll house years ago.

This doll house is now 71 years old.  There is a brass plaque on the end that states it was made for me by my mother for Christmas 1943.  

I ordered pizza at 5:30 and Elise and I sat in here and I showed her all the pictures I have of her since the day she was born--things of us doing stuff together, on and on.  She remembered a few of those times.

Then she told me she had ordered a Japanese puzzle box and how she like things like that.  "I love things like that.  I wanted to buy a set of those Matres--Matros--Russian Nesting dolls, but they were too expensive."

So we came in here and Googled the correct name:Matryoshka, pronounced, matreshka.  I walked out into the kitchen, picked up a small box and lifted the lid.  Inside are a pair of miniature Russian nesting dolls that my great uncle sent me while he was stationed in Russia after WWII.  I handed the box to her.

"I want you to have these."

"Oh, Gramma, you don't have to do that."

"I know I don't, but I want too.  I want you to have them.  They are very old and I want you to protect them.  Keep them away from your brother's and you might be able to keep them until you are my age."

<I already know what I am getting her for Christmas. :-)>

Then we sat in the living room and all of a sudden, my cuckoo clock went off, Elise looked up and said, "I remember Grandpa Fred used to pick me up and run with me over to the clock so I could see the cuckoo!"

Oh. 
My. 
Gosh!  

She was 2 and 3 years old!  Fred did that with all those kids when they were little.  It brought tears to my eyes that she still remembered.  That she even remembered Fred, he died when she was only 7.

Then she talked and reminisced about Fred's dog, Tootz.  She looked around this room at all the pictures.  Pictures of her Mom when she was a little girl.  She had never seen most of the pictures.  She hasn't been in my house for 3 years.

Elise played with the cats and the pizza arrived and we ate and talked some more about Downton Abbey and school and church and her friends, and her older brother who is not nice to her at all, and....just all of it.

I got her back home at 7:15 and Pammie said, "I thought maybe you had kidnapped her."

I looked at Elise and said, "Well we were thinking about getting in the car and driving to the ocean, weren't we, Elise."

"Yeah Aunt Pam.  Gramma and I talked about it and we wanted to...but I have Volleyball practice tomorrow night."

Then she gave me a tight hug and I said, "I love you, Sweetheart" and got back in my car and cried all the way home and just kept saying, "Thank you, God.  Thank you for this time."

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I worry so that the kids will forget because I only get to see them a few times a year, but...I have a feeling that they will never forget their Gramma...no matter how far away they move or if I never see them again.

Building memories.

Best Day Ever!!!