Grand-Pa

The main reason we went on this trip was to visit with my grandfather, Pa. He is 91 years old and doesn't act a day over, say, 65. Very much still active and very much still enjoying family and friends.

Heather remembered Grand-Pa from previous trips. Specifically she remembers picking star fruit from his tree. However, this past year one of the hurricanes twisted the star fruit tree pretty badly and there is very little, if any fruit left. Heather was still equally happy to see Grand-Pa anyway. There were only a few oranges left on the orange trees, but Kailey was still able to find one to take home with her.

Although Heather's name for her great-grandfather doesn't sound very original, it really is. She came up with it last year when she finally could understand who he was. I have always called him Pa and Heather knew that he was her Great Grandfather. Since we don't call him grandpa, Heather added Great/Grand to Pa and turned it into Grand-Pa. It fits too. Kailey has picked right up on it too and repeated his name over and over on the way to his house.

The last time Kailey saw Grand-Pa she was just starting to eat real food and expanding to candies and other hard things. She went to town on some gumdrops that Pa offered her. After that, he had won her over. I don't know if she remembers the gumdrops, but she'll remember that he made brownies this year!

This past year Pa has gotten a full size, real pool table that he spends his time with. He's not too bad and enjoys entertaining company! While we played pool, the girls walked around and sat at the table and 'colored'. Heather asked Grand-Pa where his crayons were. He was able to produce a pencil, a pen, and paper which made Heather and Kailey happy enough!

We were disapointed that we could only spend one day with Pa, but with the 4 hour round trip to his house, it was a little more difficult with two kids who had already spent 16 hours in the car that week and were looking at another 16 at the end of the week.

Nevertheless, Kailey ran and gave Grand-Pa a big hug on his leg and Heather gave him a big hug too. We look forward to visiting with him again soon!