Great-Grandparents

Want to hear something amazing?  My kids are fortunate enough to have eight great-grandparents in their lives!  Eight!  Can you believe it!  I sat down to write this post fully intending to talk about how they don't know how truly awesome and rare it is to have that many great-grandparents, then it dawned on me that I also take it for granted.  So often I just think of them as my grandparents and imagine them as they were when I was growing up.  Isn't that how you think of your grandparents?  But then it dawned on me (during a conversation with my husband), that my parents are now the grandparents like I remember and my grandparents are now the great-grandparents.  Wow, talk about a reality check.  I have many friends who have multiple grandparents and even parents who are already deceased (trust me, I'm very familiar with the fact that death has no age requirements), it's just easy to forget that it could happen to you and go on living your life as if they'll always be there. 

Last weekend I realized that we had the opportunity to see six of the eight great-grandparents in a matter of days, so I set out on a mission to visit them all.

Our first set of visits came during my nephew's birthday party.  I didn't think to take pictures of the kids with each set of great-grandparents at the party, so you'll have to settle for these pictures I already had.

First up, Grandma Margie and Papa Don (my dad's parents).  I was saddened to realize this picture is a year old, we need to fix that.

Also at Bryar's party were Grandma Jean and Grandpa Dennis (my mom's parents).  This picture is also almost a year old, we'll have to fix that too.

Then, Grandma Bennett and Grandpa Bennett (Sam's maternal grandparents) were down visiting from Oregon, so we definitely had to take advantage of the opportunity to see them. They came to Stillwater to see us Monday evening, then the kids and I drove up to Sam's parents house to see them again before they headed out.

Our visit with Grandma Marjorie (my step-dad's mom) was a surprise for her.  It was a fun little stop on our way to my in-laws.

We even got to eat lunch with Grandpa Parks (Sam's paternal grandpa) on St. Patrick's Day rounding out the Tour de Great-Grandparents.

As we were driving down the road during our cross-Oklahoma adventure, Joseph asked me something about why he had so many grandmas (the grandpas go by a variety of names).  I simply responded "Because you have a bunch of people in your life that love you very much."  He took this answer to heart and even relayed  it to his dad at dinner that night.  Of course we talked about how grandmas are related and all that jazz, but his favorite part was simply that they love him. 

I was talking to Sam about how much the kids and I enjoyed visiting with all of their grandparents and great-grandparents over the last few days and we decided that many more day trips (and longer, especially for the out of state relatives) need to happen.  So, grandparents and great-grandparents, you heard it here, go ahead and hold me accountable, we will be visiting more this year.  We're all very lucky to have you in our lives and I want our kids to actually know you, not just know of you.