Labor Days Past

On Friday I featured several items that reminded me of the Labor Day Parade in my town. I got several questions about my time in the parade, so this weekend I went on a photo hunt to find pictures of me in the parade :) It's always fun to look through old photos!

This is my first photo at Labor Day. I'm about 17 months old here. My grandpa was an Iowa Representative in Congress for many years. Don't you love me decked out in my red, white and blue! My mom is holding me and my grandma is driving.

Another tradition in my town is the crowning of the queen called Miss Essex or Little Miss Essex. I participated in this twice when I was little and got 1st runner up and 2nd runner up. I never participated when I got to high school (not really my thing then). I'm the little blonde in the front left. And each set of queens got their own convertible to ride in in the parade :)

Our parade also has lots of floats from local businesses and organizations. Here I am riding on the float for the local library. Each year the parade has a theme and this year it had something to do with "around the world". I'm on the right in the grass skirt (and REALLY short hair!).

I also mentioned in my Friday Features post that I carried the bass drum in the marching band. As a 7th and 8th grade girl, this probably wasn't the best instrument of choice...lol! Look at me go :)

And the last parade I was in (probably 2000 or 2001) Jesse and I rode a horse. There are always tons of horses at the end of the parade. I always thought it would be fun to do, so Jesse and I rode double. My cowgirl outfit here just cracks me up :)

 I'll be headed to the parade this afternoon and look forward to seeing the queens, the bands, the floats, the horses, etc. And this year, my mom gets to ride on a float for her class reunion. Maybe she'll throw me some candy :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing all of my bloggy friends a Happy Thanksgiving!

The other day, my bloggy friend, Erika, was telling us about these cute little feather hats her kids had made at school and didn't want to take them off :) It got me thinking back to my days as a child and I remembered making those same cute hats! I thought I had actual photos, but in my looking came across a newspaper photo of my preschool class in our hats. (Sorry for the bad scan!)

And here is a close up of little ol' me, back in the day :)

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving today! We will be spending the day with Jesse's family. It will be his mom's first Thanksgiving in her new home and I'm happy her whole family will be there to celebrate with her :)

A Wonderful Weekend

I took a little bloggy break over the weekend and enjoyed time with family and friends. I hope you all had a great weekend too :) Though we didn't get to go visit my parents in Michigan like we had planned, we still had a great time here in Iowa. And what a busy weekend it was!

Friday we worked around the house in the morning then visited Jesse's mom at her new house and had dinner with her and his brother's family that night to celebrate his mom's birthday.

Saturday we headed to Des Moines for a car show and to spend time with Jesse's cousin and his wife. The highlight of the day was seeing a 1964 Rambler Wagon! I have a '63 that I inherited from my great grandma and I've never seen another wagon at any car show I've ever been to! Here is my car (old picture alert!):

Here is the one we saw at the show: And here is the color I wanted mine painted next :)(Hot pink, of course) Sunday started out rainy, but cleared off in time for us to go air boating. We have such a great time on the river! We brought golf balls, clubs, and a baseball bat and had fun making up games :) After the river we celebrated the 4th (early) with a bon fire and some fireworks at Jesse's aunt and uncle's house. Yesterday Jesse went boating again and I stayed home to relax. I had to work last night (Jesse had vacation-lucky duck!). I needed a day to recover from our busy weekend! I hope your weekend was as wonderful as ours :)

Happy Grandparent's Day

I came across this photo recently and knew I had to add it to my collection :) I love finding photos of my grandparents from when they were young!

And at 79 and 87, they still act and feel young (most days)! They travel for the winter. My grandpa still farms. They dress up and go to theme parties every year. My grandpa golfs and my grandma plays bridge. It's so great that they are still active and able to do the things they enjoy :)

I thought today was the perfect day to share it with you being that it's Grandparent's Day :)

What Matters Most

As I've mentioned in a couple of other posts, my grandparents are getting ready to move from their farm house into an apartment in town. The apartment will be significantly smaller and my grandparents have acquired quite a bit of stuff over the years. My grandma decided to have a garage sale, but she let us grandkids go through things first before she sold anything. My mom had mentioned a few things that she wanted to keep, so the other day I went to pick up her things so I can store them until they visit again. There was an old trunk sitting out and I asked what was in it. I'm no pirate, but this really was a treasure chest!!! In it were old cards, photos, letters, and other memorabilia my grandma had kept over the years! There were baby cards from when my mom was born! My grandma's wedding corsage was in there! And even my grandpa's old football uniform! What treasures indeed!!! Grandma wanted to keep some of the items, but here are the ones she let me have that day: (Grandpa's graduation photo, his high school diploma, his elementary diploma, his varsity letter and one of his military photos)

There were other items I could have taken that would have been nice, or might have been worth some money, but those things didn't matter to me. I took what mattered most...the memories!!!

P.S. - Don't forget to enter my necklace GIVEAWAY!!!

More Family Treasures!!!

I went to visit my grandparents this week and my grandmother had recently received some newspaper articles, photos and other memorabilia from a family friend. The friend had been saving them for years and wasn't sure what to do with them, but thought someone in the family might want them. I just love people like that :)

Among the things my grandmother gave me were my parents wedding invitation...which I had never seen before! And the newspaper article about their wedding. I had seen the photo before, but never read the article.

I love how the invitation is timeless :) I think they chose a great one! It is something I can see someone still sending out today.

I got a good laugh out of the article! It described my mom's dress in so much detail (the longest paragraph) and the bridesmaids' dresses. It talked about all the flowers used in the bouquet. It even went on to talk about who all was at the reception. It was so detailed...11 paragraphs long!

I am so grateful that the family friend mailed these to my grandmother and that she thought of me to give them to :) My grandma even told me I could organize all her photos for her...and take or make copies of the ones I want :) This would be like a day at the beach for me! Gotta love family memorabilia :)

Almost Wordless Wednesday-Old Photo Favorites Part 2

Mom (right) and her friend Sandy

First Day Senior Year (1971)

Driving a 1958 Chevy

Me

First Day Senior Year (2000)

Driving a 1963 AMC Rambler

Almost Wordless Wednesday-Old Photo Favorites

My dad's cousin Judy, their friend Chris, Dad and Mom

Grandpa :) Our boat (I'm mad at myself for taking this photo in black and white btw!!!)

It's not the same kind of boat, but the colors are the same and they are very similar in design! How cool is that...so many years later...so similar!

Blast From the Past

Remember that box of pictures I told you I got in the mail from my mom...the ones she was just going to throw away! I finally got time this weekend to go through them and get a good laugh or two :)

I wanted to show you a couple of my faves!

This is my mom being crowned Homecoming Queen! There were several of her smiling, but I love the look on her face in this one! I remember when I was in Junior High playing dress up with this dress!

And this one really caught my eye because we enjoy canoeing or airboating on this very same river! It's cool to see that my parents partied on the same sandbars we do today!

There were so many keepers in this box I couldn't believe it! I've decided to save the others that I scanned for Wordless Wednesday posts...so look for another great photo tomorrow :)