My family is filled with adorable people. My grandpa was working at Karl's where he fixes furniture the day before Thanksgiving and to every customer he said, "Be Thankful." I love that! I haven't been to Spearfish since early July and thus it has been so lovely to be surrounded by my people. This is why Thanksgiving will always be my favorite holiday.
Showing posts with label Grandparents. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grandparents. Show all posts
Friday, November 23, 2012
Be Thankful
My family is filled with adorable people. My grandpa was working at Karl's where he fixes furniture the day before Thanksgiving and to every customer he said, "Be Thankful." I love that! I haven't been to Spearfish since early July and thus it has been so lovely to be surrounded by my people. This is why Thanksgiving will always be my favorite holiday.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Family
My life often goes through phases of various themes. The current one is of family. Not simply the family I was born into but all the self-created families I have been so blessed to find myself in mostly since coming to Augie.
My grandparents recently celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary. Neither of them are ever very giddy. That is definitely not a prominent emotion for them but on September 8 of this year and from what I have heard of the same day in '62 they were thrilled beyond belief. When I talked to my grandpa after quite the lengthy conversation with my grandma, he said in his typical grandpa-like manner, "It's been good. It was a beautiful fall day just like it was 50 years ago. I am glad I had your grandma all these years." Lovely.
One of my many Augie families is the Vikettes. My lovely group of dancers. There are only nine of us but we truly love that we get to practice and perform together, but more importantly we have become a unit and know how to be there for each other. Whether we are jumping up and down in excitement for each other or eating wallowing waffles (or wings) we know how to be a family.
My grandparents recently celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary. Neither of them are ever very giddy. That is definitely not a prominent emotion for them but on September 8 of this year and from what I have heard of the same day in '62 they were thrilled beyond belief. When I talked to my grandpa after quite the lengthy conversation with my grandma, he said in his typical grandpa-like manner, "It's been good. It was a beautiful fall day just like it was 50 years ago. I am glad I had your grandma all these years." Lovely.
One of my many Augie families is the Vikettes. My lovely group of dancers. There are only nine of us but we truly love that we get to practice and perform together, but more importantly we have become a unit and know how to be there for each other. Whether we are jumping up and down in excitement for each other or eating wallowing waffles (or wings) we know how to be a family.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Roger
Last Friday evening after greeting my grandma I strolled out to find my grandpa watering the 25 juniper trees he planted recently. The 7 ducks were roaming their grounds and the 30-or-so chickens were bawking waiting for the surprise raspberry. He was dressed in his traditional gray t-shirt and work shoes with dirt everywhere. He is such a grandpa.
He and my mom are a lot alike in their sense of humor and their acceptance of Brytten and I. All weekend we had little exchanges and even danced our way away from each other after saying goodbye for the weekend. I have discovered in my few years of adulthood that it is in your best interest to be friends with your mom but I love that my grandpa and I have a relationship that goes beyond grandfather and granddaughter. He will always be my absolute favorite person and I am fairly certain I am his, too!
I was talking to him about how my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary is coming up this September. His response: "Wow thats a long time. It's been good."
He and my mom are a lot alike in their sense of humor and their acceptance of Brytten and I. All weekend we had little exchanges and even danced our way away from each other after saying goodbye for the weekend. I have discovered in my few years of adulthood that it is in your best interest to be friends with your mom but I love that my grandpa and I have a relationship that goes beyond grandfather and granddaughter. He will always be my absolute favorite person and I am fairly certain I am his, too!
I was talking to him about how my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary is coming up this September. His response: "Wow thats a long time. It's been good."
Monday, July 16, 2012
Coffee, Swimming, and Skunks
This past weekend, Jackie, my mom, and I drove out to Spearfish to hang with the fam. We spent the weekend in coffee shops and one particular visit we happened to walk into Common Grounds during a folk band's practice session. They sang about not eating hot soup with your hands- to give you an idea of their musicality.
Jackie, Brytten and I hung out at the water park and I had one of the most adorable grown-up sister moments with Brytten. She and I went down a double-tube slide and she insisted on sitting backwards so we faced each other on our tube and giggled during the entire trip down. Its an odd realization when you and your only sister are both grownups. In the last year Brytten and I have only seen each other about half a dozen times which is completely different from living in the same house. She and I appreciate each other that much more because of how infrequently we see each other and when we say goodbye after a weekend we aren't always positive when we will see each other again.
On Friday night when we first got there we were all sitting on my grandparent's deck and my grandma started explaining how during a recent ending-of-a-skunk's-life on my grandpa's part, my grandma wanted the skunk's death to be used as a life lesson for my 7 and 5-year-old cousins because as she said, "Bad things get shot." This phrase became quite the thing particularly with my mom and my grandpa naming off the "bad things to be shot" in recent history. Everyone from Al Capone and Bonnie and Clyde was named. The next morning in the newspaper my grandpa read an article about Bonnie and Clyde's entire gun collection being sold and my grandpa joked that he was going to mortgage the house to buy the coveted collection.
Sunday morning brought another skunk's death. My grandpa had trapped it in his garden by placing a duck egg in a trap and the skunk ate the entire egg, shell and all. So because no one else was awake at the time he asked my mom to go help him. As she started to say something he thought she was going to complain about having to shoot a gun and kill the skunk when in actuality she was about to complain about her being the last thing the skunk saw before it died. Then to enhance matters as only my mother could, when my grandpa fired his gun (which keep in mind- they live in a very peaceful residential neighborhood) all my mom could think was, "He popped a cap in his ass!" Then she got the hell out.
We didn't see my grandpa for a long time and when he finally emerged and thank god, smelled normal, I got in trouble for not being willing to rescue him if he had indeed needed rescuing. He said he would never rescue me. I don't really believe him.
It should not surprise anyone that I didn't get a picture of the skunk...
Jackie, Brytten and I hung out at the water park and I had one of the most adorable grown-up sister moments with Brytten. She and I went down a double-tube slide and she insisted on sitting backwards so we faced each other on our tube and giggled during the entire trip down. Its an odd realization when you and your only sister are both grownups. In the last year Brytten and I have only seen each other about half a dozen times which is completely different from living in the same house. She and I appreciate each other that much more because of how infrequently we see each other and when we say goodbye after a weekend we aren't always positive when we will see each other again.
On Friday night when we first got there we were all sitting on my grandparent's deck and my grandma started explaining how during a recent ending-of-a-skunk's-life on my grandpa's part, my grandma wanted the skunk's death to be used as a life lesson for my 7 and 5-year-old cousins because as she said, "Bad things get shot." This phrase became quite the thing particularly with my mom and my grandpa naming off the "bad things to be shot" in recent history. Everyone from Al Capone and Bonnie and Clyde was named. The next morning in the newspaper my grandpa read an article about Bonnie and Clyde's entire gun collection being sold and my grandpa joked that he was going to mortgage the house to buy the coveted collection.
Sunday morning brought another skunk's death. My grandpa had trapped it in his garden by placing a duck egg in a trap and the skunk ate the entire egg, shell and all. So because no one else was awake at the time he asked my mom to go help him. As she started to say something he thought she was going to complain about having to shoot a gun and kill the skunk when in actuality she was about to complain about her being the last thing the skunk saw before it died. Then to enhance matters as only my mother could, when my grandpa fired his gun (which keep in mind- they live in a very peaceful residential neighborhood) all my mom could think was, "He popped a cap in his ass!" Then she got the hell out.
We didn't see my grandpa for a long time and when he finally emerged and thank god, smelled normal, I got in trouble for not being willing to rescue him if he had indeed needed rescuing. He said he would never rescue me. I don't really believe him.
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| Spearfish Creek |
Friday, June 8, 2012
One Year
I have now been writing "Good at Summer" for one year and two days. June 6th - the actual anniversary of this blog - was a crazy busy (not!) day spent at the DMV, drinking wine and catching some sun, coffee with Adam, and enjoying Mama Ladas complete with sangria with Kaycee. Obviously no time for blogging.
Before I start talking about this last year I must share my DMV experience. I finally went to get my official grown-up, super legal, 21-year-old license on Wednesday (five days after my birthday). I was there for an hour and half and while I was enjoying that long waiting period I was watching the videos about both families involved in an organ donation and of course, being me, I started to cry. Yes, I cried at the DMV! Thus the ONLY picture I have ever taken in which I am not smiling while showing all my teeth is on my license. The license that I don't renew until 2017...
I am ridiculously proud of the fact that I have written this blog for an entire year. I originally started writing it for a variety of reasons. I knew at the beginning of last summer that I was going to have three months of memorable experiences while living with my grandparents in Spearfish, working at a fish hatchery and not doing anything with fish, exploring other parts of the country with my aunt and uncle, and growing into being a grownup. It only made sense to continue writing it when I was back at Augie.
As I approach another summer of what can only be memorable experiences and my senior year that will be accompanied by a staggering list of bittersweet "lasts", I can only imagine what the posts I write in the next year will look like and how they will define another incredible year in my life. Here's to another year of being good at summer year round and two a second year of blogging.
A year of being good at summer
Before I start talking about this last year I must share my DMV experience. I finally went to get my official grown-up, super legal, 21-year-old license on Wednesday (five days after my birthday). I was there for an hour and half and while I was enjoying that long waiting period I was watching the videos about both families involved in an organ donation and of course, being me, I started to cry. Yes, I cried at the DMV! Thus the ONLY picture I have ever taken in which I am not smiling while showing all my teeth is on my license. The license that I don't renew until 2017...
I am ridiculously proud of the fact that I have written this blog for an entire year. I originally started writing it for a variety of reasons. I knew at the beginning of last summer that I was going to have three months of memorable experiences while living with my grandparents in Spearfish, working at a fish hatchery and not doing anything with fish, exploring other parts of the country with my aunt and uncle, and growing into being a grownup. It only made sense to continue writing it when I was back at Augie.
As I approach another summer of what can only be memorable experiences and my senior year that will be accompanied by a staggering list of bittersweet "lasts", I can only imagine what the posts I write in the next year will look like and how they will define another incredible year in my life. Here's to another year of being good at summer year round and two a second year of blogging.
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| The first picture ever uploaded to this blog. A Blueberry Pomegranate Fruit Tea Blast at Green Bean |
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| My "Grandpa" Mug |
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| Enjoying the rodeo on the Fourth of July before we started checking out cowboy butts with binoculars |
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| Camille and Grandpa on Duck Day |
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| I am the awesome cousin that taught them how to make s'mores |
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| Sam the S'more Pro |
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| I am also the awesome cousin that took them to a water park for the first time |
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| My summer uniform |
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| Three friends about to go to another friend's wedding |
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| Solberg ladies at Nick's wedding |
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| My first married friend |
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| Molly Olly and I dancing at Nick's wedding |
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| My best friend |
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| The first occasion in which Matt wore my shorts |
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| The Men of Solberg |
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| Solberg Women at Laura's 22nd birthday |
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| The first reunion for my 1N girls |
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| Four friends at Touch of Europe |
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| Pre-Queenship |
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| My best friend was Homecoming Queen |
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| Gaga-ified |
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| The second time Matt wore my shorts |
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| Palisades on November 1st! |
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| Three Cousins |
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| Holidays in Solberg |
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| Holidays in Solberg |
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| Holidays in Solberg |
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| Sol-idays |
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| My 1N girls who became PA's |
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| That one time I cut 14 inches off my hair! |
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| Such a beauty! |
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| Spearfish Canyon with my sister! |
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| Jackie and I in Spearfish Canyon |
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| Goofballs |
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| Who else visits Mt.Rushmore during spring break? |
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| My favorite person |
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| Campaigning |
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| Dance Team Captains! |
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| Sara Bareillis Concert! |
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| Sara Bareillis Concert! |
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| Rachel and I at the PA Benefit |
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| Dressing as our boss |
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| The Man. The Legend. |
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| I adore her |
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| Preschool Graduation is a big deal |
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| First 5K! |
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| 5K runners! |
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| Reunion with Becca! |
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| He is a stud |
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| My 2N girls |
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| New Years Eve |
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| Cow. Crap. |
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| 21!!!!! |
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| My best friend in the entire world would of course jump off a dock fully clothed with me |
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