Addison JEAN!

For those of you who don't know where Addison got her middle name, it is from my Grandma Jean. Grandma Jean was one of the most special people I had in my life as a child. I can't remember ever having a boring or bad time when Katie and I were with her. She really was the best Grandma and best friend a little girl could ask for!

I can remember going to spend the weekends with her and Grandpa John and always having a craft project to do. I especially liked the summers when we would spend a whole week with them. Dad had his work route through Colusa and I remember packing a picnic lunch and meeting him at the park one time for his birthday, we had made his favorite bologna sandwich and lemon cake. It was fun to see dad once a week and be able to stay with Grandma and Grandpa. It was always a fun filled week too! We would garden in the front and back yard planting flowers, we would be able to catch and keep baby frogs, pick lemons off the lemon tree out front, go across the street and feed the birds each morning and try and learn Grandpas special whistle, go to breakfast at Clark's and get hot chocolate with whipped cream. We always had the same waitress Linda who would make sure we never ran out if whipped cream! After breakfast we would take the "long way" home and drive through the wildlife refuge. We were alloud to go into Thrifty and pick out all kinds of office supplies and play "office" all day long. It never seemed to matter what we wanted, we got it! When the Swans man came we got to pick out what kind if ice cream we wanted and would get to have desert each night with grandma and grandpa.


Kate and I would do craft projects all day long learning so much from Grandma Jean, we both learned how to sew from her and sewing is something that we both still enjoy doing. I can never just sit at my sewing machine and not think of Grandma.
My favorite times were when Dad would go fishing with Kate and drop me off to spend the day with Grandma! I got to be spoiled all by myself! Grandma taught me how to make lemon marange pie, green bean casserole, jell-o pretzle casserole, pot roast, and all kinds of other yummy dishes!
She really was such a inspiration to me and I still think of her everyday. She was truly the best Grandmother a little girl could have ever asked her. I remember one time it snowed when I was staying a week with them over Christmas break. I made a snowman from the little bit if snow that had stuck to the ground. This snowman was about the size of a corn cob lol. And I got to keep it in the freezer! Lol

I also remember the Christmases we had at their place! Grandma loved to give gifts for Christmas, she had a list of each gift that she had gotten and each gift had a number on the wrapping paper that matched the number on the list. I'm pretty sure she slept with the list so that nobody would peek at it! Everybody got spoiled rotten with soo many gifts and they all had to be given in a certain order. It was so fun! The finale gift was always money wrapped in a clever way. The "Sterk" way! This is one Sterk tradition that I'm happy to say Dad and Mom have continued to carry on and they have become very clever with their puzzles as well!


It was always a thought in my head that my little girl would have her name. This past weekend Josh and I took Addison to her first Relay for Life and we did a special lap for Grandma Jean and lit her luminary on the way around the track. We also lit one for Grandma Sanders too. Grandma Sanders was a great Grandmother too and we shared many special times with her and Grandpa Sanders too. I will have to write a post about her also.

I wish more than anything that Grandma and Grandpa would have lived long enough to meet Joshua and see me get married and have my own little girl. I know they are looking down on us everyday. They were the best Grandparents! And I know that they would have been the best Great Grandparents to Addison too!

There are so many memories of Grandma Jean and all of them are fun and heart warming to think about. I hope that one day I will be as great as a mother as she was to my Dad and Uncle Bill and...a LONG time from now I am able to be just as wonderful of a Grandma as she was to Katie and I.