Busy Saturday full of Celebrations

Saturday was a busy day for the Kramer family.

You all might remember my niece Jody.  She passed away from breast cancer in the fall of 2019.  She left a husband and family of five children, all of who were still in school.

Well Saturday the oldest three…triplets, graduated from high school.  Of all of my great-nieces and nephews, I’m closest to these guys and wouldn’t miss this day for anything.  My kids feel pretty much the same way…so it was the Kramer family off to see the Sloan family for celebration times THREE!!

Kelli and I road together.  It was great having my van so everyone could fit in so nicely.  We learned a little more on how to fold seats down and learned that next time we’d put both boys in the way back to stow one of the middle seats.  It’s all a learning process to see how to best travel when we have babies on board.

It was a two-hour drive and Georgie kept chatting along the way about the party we were going to.  She took a little bag she had with her and started wearing it as her party hat!!  HA!

We had errands along the way.  We stopped off quilt supplies to Sandra who is #8 on the list of people who accept quilt-related charity donations.  You can find the list HERE.  Sandra is happy to accept any donations.  She sorts and divides out donations much as I do.  She is active in her church charity quilt group and is friends with people in many other charity groups.  When she knows others are looking for things, she passes them on.  She does great work!!  I ended up passing on to her several finished quilt tops that have landed here.  They do a great program that gives away finished quilts to those in need in her area.  Sandra said her own group has not recently met but is planning on starting up in the fall.  In the meantime, she’s been still sewin tops.  Does that sound familiar?  I’ve heard that from many of you!

…now back to the story.

These are the three that graduated. Yep.  They are triplets who don’t look a thing alike!

Ryan is tall well over 6′.  Dawn is short at just over 5′ if over 5′ with brown hair and Stacey is in the middle and blonde.  No one would guess they are siblings let alone triplets!!  The only thing that’s alike, their amazing smiles and sweetness.  The world needs more like these three!!

Here is proud pop with them.  He’s done a wonderful job with them.  Jody would be so proud of them all.

While at the party I took time and had Kelli snap a picture of me with my sister, Judy,…Grandma to the triplets.

Judy has not only a set of triplets but a set of twins for grandchildren too. Here are her granddaughter twins holding my grandson twins.  SO FUN!!  What is even more fun is that Elizabeth is holding Eli and Emily is holding Emmett.  Yep, the names are similar!!

Judy and I are 16 years apart and our lives are always in different chapters.  Almost half of her grandchildren have graduated…My oldest is only five years old.  Her oldest grandchild is only a couple of months younger than Kalissa.  She could easily be a great-grandma now.

Georgie was quite the character when we were there.  She climbed into the bottom of the stroller and got a mischievous look.  Little did she know we just ignored her…she was contained.

…and having her contained was perfect.

We got out of there a little later than planned.  Plus I took 10 extra minutes to stop at the cemetery where Jody is buried.  I needed to.

We had another party to be at.  This was a 60th birthday and that party was closer to home.

We kept telling Georgie we had two parties to go to.  Luckily she fell asleep as we traveling the 2 hours back home.  When we finally got there, late, I got Georgie out of the car.  She got out and yelled, “Hello party” and waved.  She’s a character.

The party we went to was for good family friends.  Long ago we started being friends with this family and the relationship has continued on.  Their kids are similar in age to our kids and they all seem just like cousins.  I do regular childcare for one of their grandkids…Buck’s best friend is another of their kids.  Our kids were in cheerleading together in school…so many things between their family and our family are intertwined and I love it.  I feel like an aunt to all of their kids.

It was so good to get together.  Going there is one of the few places I feel super comfortable as a widow.  It’s great.  I appreciate that so much.

The Mom of their family was turning 60 and we were so happy to be celebrating with her.

It is so fun to see our grandkids hanging out together now.  It wasn’t long ago that our kids were playing “Midnight come and see the ghosts tonight”.  Our grandkids aren’t quite ready to be playing that yet…but before we know it, they will be.

Our family has been so blessed to have their family in our lives.  They are the ‘drop everything and help kind of family’ that everyone longs to have as friends.

I’m sure you all can relate but there are families that you are friends with that the men are friends or the wives are friends or the kids are friends…but it’s rare when you find one that everyone is friends.  It’s also rare to have friends that aren’t competitive or pushy.  If I tell something about my kids that I’m disappointed about, she doesn’t hold it against my kids.  If she tells me something unfavorable about her kids…I don’t hold it against them.  We all accept each other faults and all…they are truly the best kind of friends.  We are blessed to have them!

So what a fun-filled Saturday!  I got to see my favorite triplets meet a wonderful milestone…hang with family and then later hang with friends.  I’m so blessed to have so many good people in our lives and so happy I could be a part of their special days…