Grandpa

September 2001- Ethan and Jillie with Grandpa Streeter

My Grandpa left us today. I will miss him.

I remember:

*The BEST popcorn EVER made. Orville Redenbacher kernels popped up on the stove topped with real butter & salt in the big green flower painted bowl. (of course I go to the food first!)

*Homemade Root beer (sarsaparilla)

* Chili hot dogs from the Corner Bar

*Walks to the Rockford Dam

*His daily walks up to the corner store for a newspaper, soda, conversation and some pretzel rods

*Grandma calling him "Strut"

*Holding hands while kneeling in a circle for family prayers before bed

*Amazing immune system. He worked at the GM plant for 44 years and never took a sick day except for when his foot got smashed on the job.

*His amazing memory of the people and history of Rockford, MI. Even when his short term memory was failing him he remembered names and places from long, long ago!

*His deep, but gentle voice.

*"Whoop there!", "Look at that Pauline. Look at him go!", "Kirk the Turkey"

*His love of all Michigan sports teams, especially the Detroit Tigers.

*How he joked that the reason he enjoyed mowing their large yard was to "get away from the wife."

*How funny he was. He loved to sing "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" in the car with us kids (Grandma not around) while out Christmas caroling.

*His love of singing.

Grandpa was getting speech therapy to help treat some difficulties he had swallowing. Singing was a part of that therapy. Here he is about 2 weeks ago. I love it!

I love him and I am so glad he is my Grandpa.

**Update: You can read is obituary here. We fly home Monday from SLC to repack and drive to MI. (Creating a slideshow along the way of the many pictures family have kindly scanned and emailed me.) Funeral is Wednesday and then drive back home so the kids can start school Thursday. May not be posting much this week! :)

NieNie Day

Remember today is NieNie Day! Check out Design Mom and CJane to bid on LOTS and LOTS of amazing things- 100% of the proceeds going toward a very deserving blogging family. If you haven't heard about Nie and her husbands accident read here.

Off to Utah...

Oh boy... Here we go on another fun adventure that we are so excited about and I have a big list of summer adventures I still haven't blogged about. Ridiculous! One day soon I will play major catch up on our relatives visits here, our trip to MI, Girls Camp, Jackson's first trip to the dentist, and our review of our local beach. All posts that are stewing in my brain, but I haven't had the energy or time to get them done. I do need to post about these so that I have a record for our family history... to help me to remember.

{By the way quick side note... my baby shower ideas post is on Tip Junkie! I love that blog & Laurie Turk! How fun is that?!}

So we are off to Provo for BYU's home opener (GO COUGS!!), campus touring, spend time with Sunny, Derek & Hyrum, Temple Square touring and of course lots of yummy nostalgic eating! (Weight Watchers- I'll get back to you on Monday!! I'll be eating like a college student until then!) We will arrive home, have a meet the teacher day, and 2 days later we're back in the hustle bustle of school days.

On a sad note we will be taking a trip back to Michigan somewhere around all of this for a funeral because my Grandpa Streeter is wrapping up his mission here on earth. It makes my heart so sad even though I know it's his time. He deserves a rest and a reward. I'm sad for my mom and her siblings, for our whole family- especially my grandma. I've been thinking a lot about him and my memories of him...yet another blog I want to write soon. But I miss him already...

(Thanks for sending the pics from your wedding Sun-

they are such cute pictures of them!)

52 Blessings Project: Week # 32

The Olympics

Our World is unified.
Our Nation is unified.
Our Family is unified.

Some favorite moments...

...especially this...

... which inspired a lot of this...

Good Mail @ Girls Camp

After reading Jill's post today, I thought I'd find a minute to finally get a little post done about a part of camp this year. During the pre camp meetings our camp director mentioned that they were not doing "secret sisters" anymore at camp, but wanted to do some sort of mail center... and asked for a volunteer to organize it. Thanks to the inspiration of Jill the Good Mail Queen, I volunteered. Now I know I could've gotten a lot more creative with the whole thing, but it really didn't matter in the end. The Good Mail@Girls Camp mail center was a HUGE HIT!

I got the mailboxes, Natosha got the paper supplies and by the end of the first day of camp, we realized we would need more paper! We could not keep the girls away from the Good Mail.


Here's what we did:


*Set up a station in the lodge that was out of the way. Made a sign and "mail boxes" (dollar store find!)- one mailbox per cabin and then an extra mailbox for any adult leaders/staff that were not in a girls cabin.


*Labeled each mailbox with a big sticker that I printed up with the name and number of that cabin.

*Created a list by certification group, alphabetized them by first name and included which cabin they were in... 1st years, 2nd years, 3rd years, 4th years, YCLs, Adult leaders (adults alphabetized by last name.) Hung lists on the wall near the Good Mail center.


*We brought pens, pencils, markers, stamping supplies, stickers, craft scissors, paper, scrap booking paper scraps, notepads... Natosha created these adorable notepads for those who only had time for a quick note.

I think they were a great idea! (We also got some baskets for these items to TRY to keep the table organized. Unfortunately the girls didn't care how cluttered the Good Mail table was getting & we were constantly re organizing, throwing away trash, etc...
*Each night the YCLs would come get the Good Mail to deliver to their cabin, but would first check to make sure all of their girls got something.

Sometimes they'd have to write a quick note to a girl who didn't have one.
*After a couple of days we started shutting down the mail center during certain times. The girls would be so busy writing Good Mail that they wouldn't do their chores or would be late to certification groups!

*The adults took advantage of the mail center too, writing notes to their daughters, girls from their ward and even to other adults.

*At the end of camp some girls asked if next year they could have 2 delivery times a day so they'd have more time to respond to notes they got.
* And the most fun part for me... By the end of the week many girls were using the term "Good Mail" :)

**EDIT: Jillie beat me to a post about Girls Camp.  I'm sure she'd appreciate some traffic over there. :)

August 14-15, 1969

On August 14, 1969 my parents were married in the Grand Rapids Stake Center (our church building in Michigan). Following their reception they flew to Salt Lake City, UT with my dad's mom. On August 15, 1969 they were sealed for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake Temple.

So today (& yesterday) they celebrate their

39th Anniversary!

I just wanted to thank them for loving each other and for setting the example for us girls of a successful, eternal marriage. We love you and miss you! Have a nice weekend in Chicago & at the Chicago Temple!

Home again...

OK... I am back (and apparently still recovering) from Girls Camp.  It was a great experience, I am so glad I got to go, and I hope I can do it again next year... but that's entirely up to Greg.  

I didn't realize how tired I was until I got back.  I also returned home with a strong aversion to my computer and camera.  I suppose that is due to the constant picture taking & editing in all of my free time and then sorting through and organizing over 800 pictures to create a slide show for the last night that is 430 pictures & almost 20 min long. It was very stressful towards the end of that process & I finished burning it to a DVD literally at the exact minute I needed to show it.  I really wish I could figure out how to post it on here... or on youtube, but it's not working. (*any suggestions welcome!*) The girls seemed to really like it- they screamed & cheered through each of the 430 pictures (which means they didn't really realize that there was music playing throughout the show)!

(Angie- this one of the OP girls is for you!)

Anyhow, I have been catching up on everyone's blogs- though I haven't had  it in me to leave comments much yet.  I am starting to come out of my funk a bit though so I hope to get around to a real post soon.  Bear with me. :)

Off to Girls Camp...

A little nervous- a lot excited.

Jillie and I will be having a great time.

I'm not sure how Greg will be doing all week with the 3 remaining littles. I'm sure they'll be fine & probably have a lot if fun too! I'm just going to miss them like crazy!! :)

See you when I get back!

52 Blessings Project: Week # 31

The little bitty blessings of life..This week as I was taking some clothes out of the wash and into the dryer, I spotted a chapstick laying in there on some clothes. (I guess I should say 'lip balm' since it wasn't Chapstick brand.) I thought, "What luck that I happened to see that instead of it going into the dryer and ruining a bunch of clothes. What a pain that would have been!" I would've spent a lot of precious time trying to get melted wax spots out of clothes. I certainly didn't have time for that this week- heck I don't like to spend any time ever trying to fix that kind of a problem!
That got me to thinking about all of the many little blessings in life... all the little moments that we may not recognize when things go RIGHT. When things are going smoothly, it is a blessing.