Monday's Memory

I know that you're not supposed to have favorites where relations are concerned, and normally I'm really good about following that rule. I don't have a favorite sibling, or a favorite niece/nephew, or a favorite parent (or if I do that information will never actually leave my brain :-P) But I must admit that I do have a favorite set of grandparents, and even this information would never leave my brain except I really don't think there's much danger of my father ever reading my blog- and if he does I think he'd understand.

My mom's parents, my Nana and my Poppa, were the best grandparents in the world. When you think of ideal grandparents (at least when I do) they are the ones that pop into my head. For a long time they lived out in Michigan and I rarely saw them but they were very good about sending Christmas Cards and pictures and whenever we did get to go and see them it was a huge treat!

And then one year I discovered that they were moving to Ogden!! They were too old to live on their own and they wanted to be closer to more kids (Of the 5 only 2 lived out east and one of those was only there for half the year) and they ended up picking out a retirement home less than half a mile from where I lived. I was SO excited!!!

Those were the glory years :-P I remember sleepovers at their apartment, trick or treating at Harrison Regent (got some of the BEST swag ever those years) I remember my Nana and Poppa having a jar full of oreos and little candies and we literally were not allowed to leave their house without taking some. But one thing that I remember the dinner.

I don't even truly remember why we were having the dinner. It was some special occasion I'm sure, and Nana wanted to have dinner with the two of her children who lived nearby and their spouses. Poppa had died in 1998 but Nana wanted to have a nice dinner. We kids threw ourselves into the idea with all shades of enthusiasm and tried to make it as wonderful as possible. For whatever reason I remember that all of our decorations were silver. I'm not entirely sure why, but that was the color of choice! We had silver bells, silver wreaths, everything that our minds imagined making a day as special as could be. And in our backyard we set up our summer tent, complete with decorations and a beautiful table set up underneath.

For some people that would have been enough. But not for us. We decided to have a waiter/waitress service available to them. The dinner was, after all, all the way in the backyard. So Thom, my brother, and Sarah, my cousin dressed up in slacks and white shirts, and practiced how we imagined truly amazing waiters/waitresses would serve.

Thom had heard somewhere that proper waiters never showed emotion (I believe he was mixing up Butlers with Waiters, but no matter. It was so hard to get a smile out of him that entire night) But here we have Sarah and Thom simultaneously removing dirty dishes while placing down pie. They really had it down...

See? We were so proper that we even had the towels over arms like real waiters do- we were determined to do it right!

Alas I don't have many more picture from that night (not ones that are co-operating anyways) when you're 11 you don't really think about the importance of taking picture. But it's still a night that will live in my memory. Trying to do something really special for our Nana because she was always doing special things for us.