Grandpa and Grandma

Happy Memorial Day!! Thank you, Grandpa for serving our country!!! And thank you to anyone else reading this blog who has served our country. We truly appreciate the work that you have done for us!!

This weekend we went down to my grandparents' house to help them clear everything out, and pick out what we wanted from their house. I'm so proud of them, they have decided to move in with my parents for the summer months.

My grandparents "winter" in Arizona from September-May every year, and usually have to spend quite a bit of time getting their house ready to live in every May. Then every August they spend time closing the house up for winter. My grandparents are social butterflies, so they spend a lot of time traveling through Minnesota in the summer with their camper and visiting friends and family. I'm sure at times it was hard for them to have to get back to the house to mow and take care of things throughout the summer. I think they are looking forward to being able to go where they want, whenever they want, without having to worry about taking care of a house.

They have rented the house they lived in here in Minnesota since my dad was 2 years old, and he is going to be 55 this year. It was fun hearing about the history of the house while we were going through everything on Saturday. My favorite part is that recently their rent went up to $600 PER YEAR from $300 per year. Dave and I had to pay more than that in rent the first month we lived in our apartment in St Paul!! Dave and I picked out lots of things that meant a lot to us, and my grandparents were excited that the things that meant a lot to them while raising their family will still be used while raising our family. Here are some of the items we picked out:

Dave and I got their dining table - on Saturday we fit 14 adults around this table. I can't wait to have big shindigs around this table!

We got a kids' table and chairs too, but couldn't bring it home as our truck was too full, but here is Jeremy sitting on one of the chairs
My great-aunt and uncle were missionaries in the Philippines and gave my grandparents this wooden fruit, the apricot table cloth and the windchimes

This was one of my favorite things at Grandpa and Grandma's house. Yep, it's a purple bull bobble-head with a rose in its mouth. Love it!!And here are some pictures from the day. We sure had a lot of fun, and relived lots of old memories. It's weird to think that we won't have any more family gatherings at their house, but I thank God we have memories that will last us a lifetime!!!

I know this is bad lighting, but the videocamera my cousin Jeremy got is super old and super cool

Zach was crazy excited about his new saw thingy. And my cousin Lucia is excited for her hubby to make something nice with it!

Here is the house

We always loved pretending this was a horse, so here are the cousins posing on "the horse" one last time

Some purty glasses that I tried on

Here are Carissa and I in the dresses my grandma wore for our Uncle Doyle's wedding (Carissa), and for our parents' wedding (me) - snazzy, I know