Grampy Rock

One of the many reasons I have not been writing as much was because of Grampy Rock.  Jynx sat down after his passing and wrote a beautiful tribute to her father. 

 

Dad came home last Sunday night and Jame Jack immediately went up to his bed and climbed the rails and said, "I love you Grampy and I missed you".  My Dad smiled at him and tried to put his hand on Jame but was weak.  He also saw his pretty girl Hope Rose as I held her above him on his bed. He looked at her and smiled and tried to wave to her. Fortunately, when Dad was home a couple weeks earlier, we had wheeled him into see our sister Jame and although he was weak, he said faintly “Hi Pretty Girl”.  I have to admit, I was very proud of the fact that there were 2 pretty girls in the house. Dad did have a song for my sister Jame which was Jame Jame Jame, I love youuuuuu, Jame Jame Jame, yes I dooooo. If you listened to the tune you would think it was catchy.

Unfortunately we had to take Dad back to the hospital the very next morning; he spiked a fever that we could not bring down. Dad was diagnosed with sepsis in the ER from a UTI and pneumonia again.

 

Although he wanted to stay with us he got tired and left us on Tuesday March 19^th at 2:57pm.  While my Mom, Jeaj and I were with him, my Mom told me how he never thought that he would be a Grandfather.  My Dad told me we had a million dollar combination when Hope Rose graced our lives because we now had a boy and a girl.

Jame Jack sat in Grampy’s lap quite often and Dad would read to him.  Hope Rose was held by Grampy a bit and she sat next to him in her jumping Jenny just smiling at him and him at her.  We all will make sure my kids remember their Grampy Rock. We feel so blessed to have had our father in our life for as long as we did and I know he lived a good long life but for us it is never enough. I guess I am a bit selfish for myself, Jame Jack and Hope Rose that I wanted our time to be longer together.

Dad was all about his family, so strong, loving, and always seem to be the voice of reason.  I was so proud of him especially through his last 2 years of life. He dealt with quite a bit of pain and never complained. My Dad was always liked by everyone and loved by many. He did not have a pretentious bone in his body, he was not a vain man and he was the most honest and fairest person I ever knew.  Dad loved songs like “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling”, “Danny Boy”, and Mom and Dad’s song was “Unforgettable”. Many did not know that Dad had a pretty nice singing voice.     

         

Dad liked the simple things in life. Dad was not one to go out much and I remember when Jame was younger, she had a convulsion at Disney World so he stayed with her while Mom took Jeaj and me through the park. Dad never did get back to Disney World, yet we went many times when we vacationed in Florida. He loved watching his sports which was just about every sport you can imagine from football to tennis and hockey to gymnastics.  He loved horse racing as well. Dad always amazed people on the stats of so many sports that he had in his head. He knew what colleges athletes came from and what draft pick they were. Dad could also add large odd numbers in his head where many would have to write the numbers on paper and add them together or use a calculator; he would have the answer before you had it with a calculator.

The only sports he didn’t watch were kick boxing, professional wrestling and NASCAR.  He helped care for my sister Jame for about 36 years until he needed help and could no longer care for her; he was our provider and worked very hard for his family. Only a Great Man could do what he did.

 When he retired, he was a putzer doing little things around the house and sometimes even trying to re invent the wheel and giving us all a good laugh.  One of his favorite jobs was burning leaves and our paper garbage.  I can remember him raking some leaves together and then lighting them all the while dragging a lawn chair around the yard to sit and watch the fire he created and then do the same thing over again in a different spot. Mom got annoyed at this because every fall we would have burn spots all through the yard.  By spring, the spots would be good as new and if you added a little grass seed they would be even better.

The best thing that happened for me was that my entire family was under one roof and although many might say that’s crazy, we simply said you do whatever you can for the ones you love and you forget about all the trivial things like your house not being exactly the way you want it to be. I personally feel that my relationship with my Dad grew so much stronger the last few years of his life and I know for my sister and I that we will be eternally grateful to our Dad that he let us care for him especially when we did not always get things right.  He knew we were trying and that was good enough for him.

 We feel blessed that we have always been able to talk to our parents and so there was nothing left unsaid. Thank you for all your prayers, positive energy, and happy dances. Our whole family has been helped tremendously. We love you Dad, Grampy, Rock, Jimmy, and Jim Dear. You are in our hearts always!!!

Celtic Blessing

May the roads rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rain fall soft upon your fields
And, until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.

Anon

  He is not lost our dearest love,
nor has he travelled far,
just stepped inside home's loveliest room
and left the door ajar.

Great Wolf

Last summer for work I lost track of the number of times I passed through Wisconsin Dells and all the water park hotels.  I began to ask around and several friends had been to them and got some great recommendations.  I told Jynx about the water parks and being the water lover she is, she wanted to go immediately.  We talked about it and with our busy schedules and to get the best deal we decided to go in February.

We looked online, and asked everyone who had kids about which one to go to.  A coupon decided it was Great Wolf in Wisconsin Dells.  We booked three days, Little Man went with but with Hope fighting a cold we decided it was best if she stayed at home with Mimi and JeaJ.  We loaded up the family trickster and headed to the Dells in the middle of winter.

When we arrived Little Man was excited to see our room.  He quickly made himself at home in our room jumping right into bed and declaring it his.  He later discovered the phone in the bathroom, he played with the phone a few times and then Jynx heard him answering some questions. She took the phone from him and he had in fact dialed the hotel operator.  The operator was asking Little Man what his mommy and daddy’s names were and he told her “Them names mommy and daddy” Luckily the operator got a good laugh out of it but just to be safe, Jynx disconnected the phone.

Once Little Man got used to the room we changed and made our way to the water park.  Unfortunately Little Man wasn’t tall enough to go on all the rides but there were plenty of other rides for him to do.  They had several different rooms with slides and pools that we started to explore.  The one room had a huge jungle gym with all kinds of water guns and I thought Little Man was going to love it.  That was until the bell started to ring and a giant bucket with 1,000 gallons of water dumps. 

Little Man would just run away.  I also must admit that room was a bit cold.  The next room had a wave pool and some pools for little kids that he loved.  This is where we spent most of our time.  Little Man loved the wave pool and we could sneak off one at a time to ride a water slide.

Away from the water park was a magic game called Magi-quest that we thought we would try.  We bought Little Man a wand and started our adventure.  The place had three floors of different things to find and shake your magic wand at and the object would move, open or sing a song.  Then you were off to find the next thing.  The magic area contained slides and areas to climb that Little Man found more fun than trying to find the next object so before long one of us was using the wand and the other was chasing Little Man.   Jynx did her best and with the help of a little girl was able to defeat the dragon; I on the other hand gave up and could care less about the stupid dragon.

The Great Wolf Lodge had some great events for kids.  At night in the lobby was a huge clock that would put on a show and before and after the clock shows they would have things for the kids.  The first night we got down to the lobby for the show and just as the show started Little Man fell asleep.  The next night we went down and made it through the show, although I struggled to stay awake.  After the show they brought out one of the characters to greet the kids and for pictures, little man walked right up and took his picture.  We also took Little Man down to Cub Club and the lady they had running it was fantastic with the kids.  Little Man who doesn’t normally like to color liked painting; he painted a magnet with a dog paw on it and a heart.

While we were in Wisconsin Dells in the middle of February it snowed and it snowed a lot, it was kind of fun to sit there in the pool and look out at the snow.  We decided to brave the cold one night and head across the parking lot to Buffalo Phil’s that advertised train delivered food.  It was a western looking restaurant with several trains running to most of the tables and a couple of televisions with Thomas on them.  Little Man’s eyes light up when we walked in and we got a table right next to the train.  The train would run by every so often with a couple of new toys on it.  The train did bring our dinner and then a little later it came by with a bubble machine blowing bubbles that I thought was cool until I realized it was going to blow bubbles on our food.  Oh well it was still fun and we enjoyed the train.

Our time at The Great Wolf seems to have flown by now but we are definitely going to have to go back maybe with some friends who can watch the little ones as we try the bigger slides.  We spent our last day in the wave pool before we changed packed up the car and headed for home to see out Little Hope again.

I have never seen a baby enjoy their jumpy as much as Hope does.  We can put her in the jumpy and she will bounce and bounce and bounce until you notice that she has gotten quiet and is asleep.  I have learned to let her sleep; she will wake up bouncing again.  Sometimes in the middle of her sleep she will begin slowly bouncing without even waking up.  She has started on food and it was a bit rough at first, but once she got the hang of it, she is now eating like a champ and in fact we have trouble keeping up with her.  I was often told that I would cry if you did not feed me fast enough and the lord has blessed me with a child that does the same.   

Here it is now April and I’m writing about February so much has happened since our trip.  I need to write more since the kids have changed so much they are growing way too fast.  I need to write more to catch up to our hectic but wonderful lives.