He is so many wonderful things - husband, dad, stepdad, friend, but most of all for my family he is a wonderful grandpa. He will be missed for so many reasons.
Here are a few memories that I have started recording so that my children can now ( and hopefully remember some) of what thier grandpa love to do with them.
How he loved his grandkids and kids! He never said so, but mom knew that he would never grow up. He always wanted to be a kid and his grandkids help with that.
He loved to take David back into Deena's room and mess it up. They would hide her chapstick or lipgloss in the foot of her bed and things like that. She would find little suprises all over her room for days!
He loved to get out the water hose and let the kids get wet, no matter what they were wearing. And he said it was always more fun when Mom didn't come prepaired with a clean change of clothes.
We all went sledding down the driveway of the house across the street (there was nobody living in the house at the time). David got completely soaked. Grandpa threw his clothes in the dryer and gave him one of his old shirts to wear in the meantime. Grandpa gave us the shirt and it turned into Davids favorite pair of pajamas.
One of the many times that we went to visit, Mom and Grandpa were sitting in the front yard visiting and Grandpa decided to turn on the water faucet in the front and let the water run down the driveway. David and Ashlie loved it. He then found a bucket to put the water in and then dumped it over. Ashlie decided it was a bath and would climb in the bucket. She ended up pretty wet that day.
No matter what Grandpa was doing he would find someway to let David and Ashlie try to help.
Grandpa had a raspberry bush in the back yard. He really enjoyed taking David and Ashlie out to pick rasberries. They would each come in the house with a bag full of raspberries and usually have them eaten before we left.
From about age 6 months to 11 months Tyler was very leary of strangers. We would walk into Grandma and Grandpa Rogers house and he would take one look at Grandpa (and Grandma) and cry-trying his hardest to get back to mom or dad. But once he got used to everyone he would sit with Grandpa and loved him just as much as anyone else.
Grandpa loved to make popcorn. David loved to watch grandpa's popcorn popper. He would sit and stare at it until all the popcorn was popped. Then he would share the popcorn with everyone. Ashlie was alway happy to eat it.
Grandpa loved to give us ice cream, especially the drumsticks by Nestle.
And olives. Grandpa loved olives but nobody in the house would eat them, so every time we would go to his house for dinner he would open some olives and make us help him eat it. There were times that mom ended up eating half the can.
We left Ashlie's flip flops at Grandpa and Grandma's house for about 3 weeks. One day, on a Thursday, Grandpa showed up at our house just to bring Ashlie her flip flops. Ashlie was so excited to see him. He had a hard time getting away because she wanted him to stay play.
The day before he passed away, Mom had been so sick and didn't even go to church. We decided that we really need to go. As soon as we walked in he started chasing David and Ashlie around teasing them. And trying to hold Tyler (with out much success-at least at first anyway). Mom and Dad sat and visited with Grandma and Grandpa, and even worked on a crossword puzzle a little bit. Mom is so grateful that she went, even though she didn't feel good.
He is a wonderful Grandpa who loved to spoil his grandkids - in every sense of the word. He has lots of friend and people who love him. We are very lucky to have had him in our lives
I know that the picture really isn't the best picture, but I love that picture. He truly would try and include my kids in everything he was doing.
We love you Grandpa Roger and will miss you!
