Grandchildren
Into each life, comes change. It is the one constant. My sister, Allyn’s life is no different. Allyn is my youngest sister, and within the last 6 years, the road of her life has taken many twists and turns, as does every life. One of the biggest changes, however is the empty nest. Allyn’s transformation to empty nester began with the marriage of her son Ryan to his wife, Chelsea. Then, just nine short months later, Allyn and her husband Chris, became grandparents when their first grandchild, Ethan Christopher was born. Before long, Ethan was followed by his little sister, Aurora Briann. Allyn was now a grandmother of two, and she is loving every minute of being a grandmother…something any grandparent can totally relate to.
During this time, Jessi had moved out, and Lindsay was away at college, so all they had was their youngest daughter, Kellie at home. I’m sure the house fell pretty big in those days, but it wasn’t an empty nest yet. Through those years, the three girls might have move out and comeback home a couple of times, and I’m sure that felt kind of nice to Allyn and Chris, but then came the day, a year and a half ago, when their daughter, Jessi would get married to Jason, and she would permanently move out. Lindsay was living and going to college in Brookings South Dakota by then, and Kellie took over Jessie’s rented house, making Allyn and Chris officially empty nesters.
Of course, with all that change takes away from a person, it also adds to the person. Not only did Allyn and Chris now have a daughter-in-law and a son-in-law, and the two grandchildren, but this was also about the time that the grandchildren started to be old enough to spend the night with Grandma and Grandpa…thus alleviating the loneliness that often accompanies the empty nest. It is really the biggest blessing of having grandchildren, as any grandparent will tell you. Your children’s children can fill that void left in your life when your children move out. And their parents don’t mind the free babysitting service either. Now, in just 4 days, Allyn’s daughter, Lindsay will marry Shannon in Florida, where they are moving. Her husband to be was just hired at Florida International University in Miami. While I know that Allyn is very happy for her daughter and soon to be son-in-law, I also know that she will 
miss them very much, as it will be harder for them to run home for a weekend visit.
With all the twist and turns on Allyn’s life’s road have changed her life dramatically they have also enriched it. Before long there will be new grandbabies and one more wedding, and I know that Allyn is looking forward to each of them, as their time arrives, because as we all know a growing family is always a great blessing. Today is Allyn’s birthday. Happy birthday Allyn!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
When my daughter, Corrie and her husband, Kevin were dating, there came a day when Corrie was at her Grandma Schulenberg’s house to visit. Kevin came by, and they were sitting on the front porch talking. Corrie was sixteen years old at the time, and Kevin was nineteen. It was a nice day, and they were just enjoying each other’s company, when her grandma came out of the house and said that they were going grocery shopping, and asked if Corrie wanted to go along or stay there at the house. Corrie said that they would just stay at the house. Well, apparently that was the wrong answer, because her Grandma said, “No, you are going with us!” That was the end of the story. Corrie went grocery shopping and Kevin went home.
Corrie’s grandma grew up in a different era. Not the one where dates had to have a chaperone, but you didn’t leave a young couple at a house by themselves. I’m not sure what they thought was different about a house as opposed to a car, or any other place where kids could be alone, but she apparently felt that it was her job to make sure nothing happened. Corrie was old enough to drive, and had driven herself over to their house, so she could have just locked the house and told them to go home, but that didn’t seem appropriate to her, so she made Corrie go grocery shopping, and the kids dutifully obeyed her. If you had ever been grocery shopping with my mother-in-law, you know would that it is a three or four hour ordeal, and Corrie left her car at their house, so she was stuck. I went shopping with her once, and that was enough for me, but that is another story.
The kids never told me about that occurrence, until we were coming back from visiting her in 
the nursing home a couple of days ago. My mother-in-law had been talking about Kevin a few days earlier, and with his job, it wasn’t easy for him to get the time to go out there with us, but on this day, he was able to come. With her Alzheimer’s Disease, I wanted to make sure that he understood that even though she had been talking about him, she still might not recognize him. When we got there, I asked her if she knew who all her visitors were, and she looked at him and said, “Yes, Kevin.” Kevin has been in the family longer than any of her other grandchildren-in-law, but I was still surprised. I guess that his respectful handling of that awkward moment twenty two years or so ago, made a good impression on her…that and all the other nice things about Kevin.
As my two oldest grandchildren approach their 18th birthdays, just a little over a month from now, it occurs to me just how quickly time flies. It seems like only yesterday that we were awaiting their arrival. We never suspected that they would be born just a day apart…Chris on his great grandmother’s birthday and Shai on Leap Day. When Corrie went into labor on the 27th, we all knew the closeness to her grandmother’s birthday. How cool it would be for Chris to arrive on that day, because Corrie had been born the first great grandchild on her great grandmother’s birthday, Bob’s mother, and now, the upcoming birthday was her own birthday, and Chris was her own first great grandchild…a rare occurrence indeed. When midnight passed, we knew we had made it, and we were all very excited about that.
Then, the next day, Amy called me and said that Corrie had “inspired” her, and she was now in labor. I couldn’t believe it. It would be so cool to have a Leap Day Baby, but she would have to hurry, and it almost seemed impossible…but then with our anniversary being on March 1, I thought that day would be cool too. Shai, however, had planned an unusual day for herself, one that would be all her own, and one that would only come every four years…Leap Day.
So it was that we were given two grandchildren, one boy and one girl, in two days. Seriously, does it get any better than that? I don’t think so. The two kids became instant best friends, because of the amount of time they spent together at my house and at Amy’s house, because Amy babysat Chris. I was living on cloud nine at that point, and I felt like the most blessed grandmother in the universe. I had told the girls that I wanted to be a grandmother by the time I was 40, and so they decided to oblige…hitting my goal twice just two months before my 40th birthday. The funny thing was that when Corrie said, “We made it Mom”, I had to ask “made what?” She laughed and said, “You are a grandmother before you are 40!” I had been so excited about the arrival of my first grandchild, that I had completely forgotten my goal.
Now, here we are almost eighteen years later, and looking at both of them getting ready to 
graduate from high school, and planning their college days and the rest of their lives, and all I can think is, “Where had all the years gone?” How could those precious little babies suddenly be adults? It seems impossible, and it makes me more than a little bit sad, but then I think, “Hmmmm, maybe I could be a great grandmother by the time I’m 60…not a bad goal at all. Time will tell, I guess. Maybe I’ll need to start putting a bug in those two little babies…now adult’s ears. And maybe, I shouldn’t have let that secret idea be known, because I’m not sure my girls feel ready to be grandmothers just yet. Still, that’s a couple of years down the road, so they will have a little time to get used to the idea. Seriously…it could happen.
Most people think of Christmas Eve as just a precurser to Christmas Day, and it is, but for some people it is a little bit more than that. My Grandma and Grandpa Byer have made that an extra special kind of day for the Byer family. Christmas Eve was their wedding day…in 1927. To our family that day marks the day when most of us began the long road to our very existence. My grandparents became the parents of nine children over the years, thereby bringing about thirty one grandchildren, and countless great grandchildren, great great grandchildren, and great great great grandchildren. My grandfather used to remark, “Mommy, look what we started.” Did they ever!! They were married 53 years before Grandpa went home to be with the Lord. Grandma would follow him just 8 short years later, but their love has never passed away. This year, as I contemplate the love they had for each other, and the massive family they created, it occurs to me that this would have been their 86th wedding anniversary. No, they did not live to see that day…not many people do, but if they were still alive…they would have still been together…of that there is no doubt.
Many people might not think Christmas Eve is such a great day for a wedding, what with the holiday and all, but many years ago, that was considered a good time for a wedding, because the family was already gathered for the holiday, and famiy from far away usually couldn’t make it such a log distance for a wedding anyway, so that didn’t matter. Weddings were much less elaborate then too, so they didn’t take as much planning. The couple usually wore their Sunday best clothes, and then went right back to wearing them for Sunday again. Nevertheless, the love was there, and that was what matters. Grandma and Grandpa were made for each other, and they were happy all the days of their lives. I’m sure Grandma never expected to be here without him, and I’m sure there were many lonely days after Grandpa’s passing, but she held his memory in her heart and carried on for another eight years.
Being married on Christmas Eve is probably why Grandma and Grandpa Byer always 
considered Christmas Eve to be such a special holiday. They loved the family Christmas parties. They got to celebrate their Anniversary and Christmas with all, or at least most, of their kids, grandkids, and great grandkids. Many of the great great grandkids and great great great grandkids either don’t remember or never met Grandma and Grandpa Byer, and that thought makes me sad, because they have missed out on so much. While Christmas Eve is not a common day for a wedding, one couple in our family thought Grandma and Grandpa’s wedding date was so special, that they decided to marry that day too, so Happy 86th Anniversary to Grandma and Grandpa Byer, and Happy 19th Anniversary to Raylynn and Doug Williams too.
For as long as she could remember, my daughter, Amy has wanted to swim, interact, or at the very least, touch a dolphin. I think she was beginning to think that her lifelong dream would never come to pass. Then, she and her husband, Travis decided to take a very special family vacation, before their children, Shai and Caalab were completely grown up. They settled on a Caribbean cruise. At first they were going to keep it a secret so the kids would find out when they pulled up to the dock, but the excitement got to be too much for them and they found themselves wanting the kids to share in the excitement of planning the trip. Shai and Caalab were beyond excited about the trip, and over time it became all they talked about. Finally the day arrived, and they were off on the trip of a lifetime.
Their trip would take them to a private island in the Bahamas, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel, Mexico. 
They would get to go parasailing in the Bahamas, which was a little un-nerving for Shai…but then I’m not sure how I would feel about it either. Jamaica was the part of the trip that Travis, Shai, and Caalab were most looking forward to. They were going to see the home and grave of one of their favorite singers, Bob Marley. Jamaica was a little surprising for them too, because there are two sides to Jamaica…the rich and the very poor…still, the visit to Bob Marley’s place was the highlight of the trip for Travis and the kids. In Grand Cayman, they took a ship wreck tour, and found out what can happen when an anchor misses the shelf it is supposed to land on. The fish they saw through the glass bottom boat were amazingly beautiful, and the ship wrecks were sad, broken pieces of what used to be a ship.
Finally, came the day when Amy’s wish would come true. Their ship arrived in Cozumel at 10:00 in the morning…to pouring rain!! They all wondered if they would be able to spend 
their time with the dolphins. Travis and Caalab were trying to figure out a way to force the issue, in the event that they said it was cancelled. Thankfully the rain quit, and they headed into the pool area. After a little training, they were able to interact with the dolphins. For Amy this part of the trip was the end all/beat all best part. I don’t know if she ever truly believed that her dream would come true, but in the end, not only did she get to interact with the dolphins, but one named Diego even gave her a kiss. Travis was a little jealous, but since Diego wasn’t coming home with them, he figured that one little kiss wouldn’t hurt anything.
As kids, my sisters and I all had long hair. My dad always loved long hair, and never wanted any of us to cut it. Today, my sister, Cheryl and I are the only ones with hair that is very long. Neither of us can bear to cut it. I don’t know if it is because Dad always liked it, or if we just can’t imagine ourselves in shorter hair. Maybe it is a little of both. I think that people tend to like hair styles that are similar to what they grew up with, but not always, I suppose…after all my three younger sisters no longer have long hair. I suppose all little girls want to be beautiful, and our hair is a big part of that. Whether our hair is long or short, curly or straight, it is like a crowning glory to our look. We hate bad hair days, because we just don’t feel like we look our best. And of course, wind is the worst enemy a great hair style can have. You can’t put enough hairspray in your hair to fight of a windy day and the wind can make long hair stand straight up if you don’t hold it down.
I think my dad may have liked long hair in the beginning, because his sister, Laura always had 
long hair as a child. their mother was so proud of her daughter’s long curls, and she worked very hard on getting them just right for her. That kind of care can make a little boy, who is twelve years younger than his big sister, think that hair is very important…even if he doesn’t realize it. Curls have gone in and out of style, and these days women wear their long hair both ways. Cheryl likes her hair curled, but my hair has a tendency to get frizzy and tangle easily, so I straighten mine. I have natural curl, but it isn’t beautiful, with great curls, but rather an errant wave here and there. Ugh!! But Aunt Laura’s long curls were beautiful, and more in style today than people would expect. They reminded me of a long haired Shirley Temple look. You could tell that Aunt Laura liked her long hair too. She always had pretty bows in it as a child, and in the picture where she was showing off her curls, she seemed very proud of them, and her mom was really proud of it too.
Another funny thing about long hair is how it acts when you flip it out of your way. My grandson, Josh and I were putting up my Christmas tree on Saturday. As I bent over to get another ornament for the tree, my hair got in my way, so I flipped it out of the way. Josh 
started laughing. I asked what was so funny, and he told me that my hair had landed on the tree, and it was still there. It wasn’t the first time my hair had landed somewhere it didn’t belong. Bob and I were at Mount Rushmore on the 4th of July one year. It was very crowded. I flipped my hair back, and got this…feeling. I turned around to see the woman behind me touching her nose, and saying, “She hit me with her hair!” I was horrified. I immediately apologized, saying that sometimes I didn’t realize how far my hair reached. She was gracious, and the situation passed, but it was not forgotten…by me. Long hair can be beautiful, but it can also be a little hard to control sometimes. And that can be comical too.
Every year on October 31st, kids all over the country take to the streets, knocking on doors to collect a bounty of candy…whether they need it or not. My kids and grandkids are all beyond the trick or treat stage now, but that doesn’t stop some of them from dressing up for work and parties they have been invited to. My nieces and nephews have a great time each year, and the costumes are as varied as the imaginations of the people wearing them. My niece Jenny and her husband Steve always have a party on Halloween, so that all the family can gather and enjoy each other’s company. Jenny and Steve have come up with a variety of costumes over the years…from Indians to cowboy and dance hall girl. And then there’s my niece, Kellie, who uses the workplace to create a costume…I guess writing insurance for Progressive has it’s perks…I should have thought of that, since my daughter Amy and I write for Progressive too. My 
granddaughter, Shai has told me that she is planning to dress up for work tonight too, at Outback Steakhouse. I think she should go as a Bloomin’ Onion, but I don’t expect her to take my advice.
When I was a kid, Halloween was pretty much a kids game, and while Dad always took us trick or treating, the night belonged to us. My parents never dressed up, nor did any other adults I knew. We didn’t bother with a little Jack-O-Lantern basket for our candy, because that didn’t hold enough…just take a pillow case. It was sure to be full by the time you got home. Dad was always a good sport, taking us out as long as we could stand it, which was quite a while if the night wasn’t too cold. We didn’t go 
to places like the mall…we didn’t have one anyway…or other businesses, because there was very little worry about tainted candy. It was just a very different time. These days people must be much more careful, and maybe that is why there are more parties, and less trick or treating.
Halloween will always be a kids game, I suppose, but these days it’s not just for kids, and the people I am around that dress up are not kids…or maybe they are. They say some people never grow up, and it could be that the ones that dress up just have a little bit of a kid still living on the inside of them. Here’s to childhood, and never growing old!! Happy Halloween everyone!!
As Bob and I were having breakfast this morning, I noticed a family leaving the restaurant. They stopped outside to hug each other and say goodbye. There were two little girls there that the elder side of the family seemed especially sorry to see go, and it didn’t take much vision to realize that the younger side of the family had moved away from Casper, and the grandparents missed them terribly. My thoughts journeyed back to when my sisters and I were much younger and living at home with our parents. Almost all of us have either stayed in the Casper area, or returned to it now, but that doesn’t change the feelings that happened when we had to say goodbye to the ones who moved away for a time, or the feelings we felt when our cousins would visit and then had to go home.
It seems like more and more, families live in various places around the country, and even in totally different countries from their parents. While sometimes it is necessary for jobs and such, it doesn’t help the loneliness that it always creates on both sides of the situation. The hardest part is always the little kids, who don’t get to know their grandparents. Oh, they will get to know the a little on visits, through phone calls, and Skype, but they never really know them well…never feel the real bond. Those things are left to the family members who live nearby, and are privileged enough to have lots of contact with aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, children, grandparents, and grandchildren.
Of course, that is not the only way that people can miss their family members. So many people get wrapped up in their own lives, and forget that there are loved ones out there who would love 
to have a visit from them. People who can’t get to them so easily, and so depend on them to bring those little ones around so they can get to know them. Sadly those little ones have no say in the matter, and the time to let them share in the lives of their elder relation is so quickly lost…and once it’s gone, there is no going back. People really should try to think about how badly their loved ones could be missing those who are far away…or even those, who aren’t so far away.
When my sister, Cheryl suggested that my little granddaughter, Shai, who was only ten years old, spend the last month of her summer vacation taking care of our parents, while Dad was recovering from a very serious set of circumstances beginning with Pancreatitis, and Mom was beginning treatment for a Large Diffuse B-Cell Lymphoma of the brain, I was sceptical, but Cheryl argued that Shai was a mature ten year old, and she could do it. I worked nearby, and could easily get to my parents house in a matter of minutes, and so it was settled. Shai made me so proud. She was like a professional nurse. I checked in with her, and she called me sometimes, but I never had to go over and rescue her. I went at lunch to help out, but my girl…well, she could handle it, and there was no doubt about it. Shai saved us that August. By the time school started again, Mom was enough better to help out with Dad, and handle most things that came up.
There are girls…and boys too, who just have that capability. They understand the things that need to be done, and they aren’t afraid to step up and do what is needed. They don’t look at the enormity of the situation, failure never enters their mind, they don’t seem to know the word can’t…they just do. I don’t say that my girl was the only girl like that, but I couldn’t have been more proud of how she handled that situation.
I was looking through some information in my Uncle Bill’s family history books, and I came across something that I didn’t know about before, but found very interesting. When my Uncle Bill was just a baby, my grandparents owned a hotel in Tomahawk, Wisconsin. The family lived in the hotel, and grandma ran it, while my grandfather was working at the papermill. It’s pretty hard to run a hotel, which most likely included cooking meals to sell to the guests, and still take care of a baby and a ten year old girl. But, my Aunt Laura was 
not an ordinary ten year old girl…she was a mature ten year old girl, like someone else I know. While her dad worked at the papermill and her mom ran the hotel, my Aunt Laura took care of her little brother, Bill. He was a tiny little baby, and needed a lot of care, but that didn’t faze that ten year old girl. She had a job to do, and according to Uncle Bill’s writing, she did it very well. Taking care of a baby is no easy job…especially for a ten year old girl with little training. It didn’t matter. She was a mature ten year old, and she learned quickly, and in the end, her care for her little brother not only made her parents proud…it made her little brother very proud of what his big sister had done for him. A ten year old girl…can be amazing indeed, sometimes.
When I picked my grandson, Josh up from Kelly Walsh High School the other day, we drove past the area where they are tearing up the old teacher’s parking lot for the school renovation project that is going on in several schools around town. Josh said, “When I look at that, it makes me sad?” He hated seeing the school he had known change. I found that a little surprising, in that this is Josh’s first year at Kelly Walsh, but when I thought about the fact that Josh’s older brother Chris has gone there for 3 years, it made sense that he would think of this school as a place he knew well. We continued down 12th Street, and past the swimming pool and he mentioned the building that was the entrance to the pool, and it really hit me.
Kelly Walsh High School has been a part of my life since I was a kid. It first opened in 1965, when I was just 9 years old. It wasn’t long after that that my sisters and I began going to Kelly Walsh High School to go swimming, almost every weekday in the summer. We walked past Pineview School to 8th Street, turned on Sally Lane, crossed the foot bridge to Forest Drive, went up to 12th Street and up to Kelly Walsh pool. It was so much fun to go swimming there every summer, and now the building is gone and the pool will follow. All those years of that pool being such a huge part of my summer…and now it will be gone.
So many changes are about to occur to the school where I spent my high school years. When the work is done, I don’t know if I will even recognize it. After my graduation, my sisters attended there, and then my older sister’s older children, and then when my girls started high school it was at Kelly Walsh, and once again I spent time there. Now, two of my grandsons are there and I am spending time there again. Kelly Walsh High School will always be a part of my life it seems, but it will not always be the school it was. I know it will be a better school when they are done, and I know it is a necessary change, but it still makes me sad too.
