My husband and I love having a few 'family traditions', whether it be just the two of us or with our children and/or grandchildren. All of our children are now grown, married, and have families of their own and only our middle daughter and her family live close to us. This same daughter has blessed us with 3 grandsons and a soon-to-be adopted granddaughter, with her boys being the oldest of our grandchildren. Well, a few years ago, my husband and our oldest grandson, Gabe, (who was 8 at the time) took a trip to a 6 Flags Amusement Park during the summer school break. It was just the two of them and they had a fabulous time together, so much so, that the following summer they wanted to go again....and of course, they had another fantastic time together. Although exhausted from all of the 'fun', Gabe would share his excitement of each trip with his younger brothers...who at those times, were too young to join them and were eager to hear about each trip. And as you might imagine, the younger grandsons were a bit envious and kept asking my husband when they would be allowed to take part in all of the 'fun'! During one of the visits with 'our boys', the younger ones kept asking (hounding,actually) Papa when they would be allowed to go with him to the water parks. Realizing he couldn't 'hold them off' much longer, my husband proclaimed, 'You have to be at least 6 years old before you will qualify to join the 'water park tradition'. Awe, the sad faces really got to my heart, but I also knew it would be difficult for Papa to handle 3 boys all by himself on such a trip, and quickly determined he had been wise in declaring such a 'rule'. Suddenly our middle grandson, Christian -- who is our family Math Whiz, began jumping up and down with excitement and gleefully announced to everyone, ' I get to go next summer because I'm gonna be 6 this year"! My husband, who bless his heart has such a difficult time remembering all of the birthdays taking place in our family these days, immediately realized what he had 'said' and what he had 'meant' to say were not the same! What he actually had been thinking was that since Gabriel had been 8 years old when they first took the trip, he wanted all the boys to be 8 before they could go...but that was NOT what he had said! And so, to his credit, he took a deep breath and said calmly, 'Well, I guess you are right about that', and 6 years old became the 'official age' of the summer amusement park tradition.
Fast forwarding to this current summer with 4 water park 'traditions' now 'under the belt', we have a third grandson, Caleb, qualifying to join the summer fun! Last week, Papa -- accompanied by his lovely wife (err, that would be me) because keeping up with 3 kiddo's would definitely require the help of another adult -- was able to keep this particular family tradition going by giving his 3 oldest grandsons a super fun, super charged day together at DelGrosso Amusement Park in Pennsylvania.
It was definitely a memory-making day for them and for us!
OK....so what does the story have to do with the card above.....well, as Caleb was getting into the car to join us for his first big trip to the amusement park, he handed me a card....the one you see above. On the inside he wrote a sweet note expressing his thankfulness in being able to take part in this family tradition.
But, take a close look at the card front. You will not only see another fun stamped image he colored, but you will also see 2 hearts added to the top left side as embellishments.
As Caleb handed me the card, he explained 'why the hearts'.....'because the blue heart is my heart and the pink heart is your heart and our hearts are always together when I make my cards' . Continuing, he added, 'Nana, my heart will always think of you when I make my cards and I wanted to put our hearts stuck together on the card'.
Don't you know there were tears of joy now streaming down my face ! It was such a very precious moment and I was sooooooooooo proud of him....as you can see, he already puts so much thought into his cardmaking.....it actually humbled me as I thought to myself... 'I should put that much thoughtfulness into my own cardmaking'!
So, until next time,
Make time to create but remember to have fun and enjoy the experience!
Barbg(WV)
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