Glenna Bott

My grandma passed away on July 18th, four days after Jared's grandpa died.
Here are some of my memories of her.
I remember when I was about 4 years old, and grandma came to stay with us. My mom had the idea of playing a little trick on her. When we left work the next morning, we got a balloon and tied it to a chair, we then put a hat on the balloon, and a jacket on the back of the chair. We made our own "man"! Well, after we left, grandma got up, and walked into the kitchen, and screamed, thinking there was a man sitting at the table! I don't know why my mom wanted to scare poor grandma, but we all had a good laugh about it later!

I also remember about this same time, I managed to get my head stuck in a railing. I was terrified that I would spend the rest of my life stuck there! I knew my mom would bring me food, but what would happen when I needed to use the bathroom? What if it rains? Would friends still come and play with me? Really, how much fun can a person be stuck in a railing? I was in a panic! Grandma told my mom to slick my head with butter, and yep it popped right out! So I guess you can say that I owe grandma for having a life that included me being able to leave the front porch!

Then came the mid 1980's. I remember her visiting us again, and this time she had something that was all the rage back then: clip on sunglasses! All the cool kids, (and grandmas) had these. They were sunglasses that clipped onto your normal glasses. I remember her telling me how she was at the grocery store, and everyone kept looking at her, and she couldn't figure out why. She got into her car, looked in her rear view mirror, and busted out laughing. She had flipped up her clip on sunglasses, and they looked ridiculous! They looked like some metal butterfly had landed sideways on her eyes!

I wasn't here for this one, but legend has it that one time grandma had just gotten done grocery shopping. She came to a stoplight, and for some reason, thought she was already home. So she got out of her car and started to unload her groceries! I've told my husband that if I ever do that, he has permission to put me in a home, cuz that means I'm done!

Grandma always seemed to be laughing. You could never be sad around her. I hope to be able to follow her example and to always remember to laugh. Life is too short to be taken seriously!

Stanton Bryant Rickett

July 2010 was a mixture of fireworks and funerals for our family. Jared's grandpa passed away on July 14th, and then my grandma passed away 4 days later on the 18th.

Here's a few things I remember about Grandpa Bryant:

When Jared and I were dating, I remember meeting his grandparents, and his grandpa was concerned about how much money they had to pay for property tax on their house. He pulls out a note card out of his pocket and proceeds to tell us how much a year it was costing them in taxes to live there. Then he told us how much each month was, then each day, each hour, each minute and of course each second! Apparently he would also write jokes on these note cards, so that he would remember them.

I remember Jared and I visited them in Pennsylvania when we went on our honeymoon. It was great to hear so many stories about Jared's ancestors. We have this really funny story that Bryant told us that we have on video. It was how back when he was a father, the men never changed diapers. One day his wife Marguerite was at the store, and he was left with the children, and one of them needed a diaper changed. He tried changing it, but the baby kept moving her legs all over the place, and "stuff" went flying! Finally he just had to sit there and hold her legs until Marguerite got home, which seemed like two days later. When asked for any words for prosperity, he asked "Posterior? Keep it clean!"

We would've liked to have attended the funeral, but they lived in Pennsylvania, and we couldn't afford it. So we had our own memorial out here with some of Jared's brothers and sisters and cousins. It was great to hear everyone else's memories of him. I've only known him for the past 10 years, and sadly he had been sick off and on for most of those years. At the end, he was in the hospital, and he seemed to be making a recovery. He was even joking with the nurses right before he passed away.

I'm lucky to have known such a great man. We named our 2nd son, Kirby Bryant, after him and after Jared's dad, Christopher Bryant. (Actually there was another Stanton Bryant Sr. he passed away a long time before I was part of the family) I'm grateful to be a part of this family, I have some wonderful inlaws, (and some of them are almost as nutty as me!)

We had the Insane Rickett Family 4th of July party at our house. Here's some pictures! Kirby looks so thrilled with his sparkler

So does Murphy!

I love this shot! I was taking a picture of a fountain, when somebody kicked a ball into it! Talk about a "Happy Accident!" I don't think I could re-create this shot if I tried!

Uncle 8 does the traditional fountain dance!

The handing off of the fountain!

Official Swim Blog!

My friend and I signed our kids up for swimming lessons together, and on the last day I brought my camera to take some pictures. We were joking about blogging this, so here's the official swim blog, just for you Julee! (I got some great pictures of her kids too, but I thought it would be crossing a line if I started a blog using her kid's pictures!)

Here's Kirby squinting, or imitating a pirate, I'm not sure.... Ready to take on the pool!
While waiting for Kirby's class to do something interesting, I entertained myself by trying to photograph my other child. Murphy grabbed the closest thing to him to hide behind. (If he really wanted to hide, he should've grabbed the towel!)

After using my foot to knock the shoe away, I finally get a good shot of him!

Kirby goes off the diving board. He's got that look of intense concentration!

He did it! And absolutely loved it!

He passed his class and now gets to go onto the next level!

Come to think of it, I probably should've blogged Murphy's soccer, the Kindergarten program, the Clark Planetarium, Scout Camp, the list goes on and on!

Soon.....

The Digital Dilemna

I found this picture last night as I was going through some reunion pictures from three years ago. I think it's the cutest picture of Kirby, and yet I don't remember seeing it before! This photo is sooo cute, and I don't have any prints of it! How could I have missed it in the first place? Could be that it's the 190th picture out of 234! I love digital camera's, you can take hundreds of pictures with them, and see them instantly, and not have to pay to process and develop each shot, but sometimes I think I might just go a little bit overboard! I mean really, how have I missed this shot since 2007? There were some other pictures from this reunion that I am just now getting ready to print....3 years later! The drawback of digital (or maybe the blessing!) is that you can have thousands of pictures on your computer, and nothing printed!

12 Weeks Left!

I meant to post this yesterday....but 12 weeks left until school starts! Whatever will these two do until then? Love the look on Kirby's face! At least we put the swing set back together for them!
Buckwheat is enjoying the sandbox way tooooo much! Yes, I need to pull out the rest of the weeds, but with our yard, it's hard to know where to start...I keep reminding myself, it's a work in progress!

Harold the Lego Guy goes for a Ride!

This picture has nothing to do with the subject of this blog. I just wanted to pick some random picture to put in here!

Here's the next Harold the Lego Guy story. I have to admit that making up this story was the most fun I had all day!

One night Harold the Lego Guy was bored. So after Kirby went to sleep, he crept out of his Lego pit to go look around. As he was creeping through the darkness, he heard the noise of a party going in full swing, it was the Transformers! So he went over there to join them. The Transformers welcomed Harold, gave him a coke and some cookies. Harold really hit it off with Bumble Bee. They decided to go and have an extended adventure! Bumble Bee transformed into a car, and Harold climb in for the ride of his life! They went cruising down the hall and into the living room. There they saw the large form of Buckwheat, the sleeping cat. "Lets wake him up!" Bumble Bee shouted! So Bumble Bee flashed his lights at Buckwheat and then ran over his tail! This had the desired effect of waking up the cat, who then began to chase Bumble Bee and Harold. Buckwheat chased them around and around the living room and kitchen. After the third circle, Harold didn't feel so good, he told Bumble Bee to pull over. Harold spewed all over the kitchen floor! Even Buckwheat was disgusted, (or maybe he was just tired of chasing them! He is out of shape!) Buckwheat returned to his spot on the couch to finish his nap, and Bumble Bee and Harold decided they had had enough of an adventure, and went back to Kirby's room...just in time for Kirby to wake up in the morning! Later on that day....mom could be overheard saying, "why is it our kitchen floor is always such a mess! There's always dried up spots all over it!"