Grandma Teerlink

 As I am sure we all do, I have many wonderful memories of Grandma. The very most recent one was an anniversary dinner that we shared with Grandma and Grandpa Teerlink.  Twelve years ago, when David asked me to marry him and we chose a wedding date we had to work around a lot of schedules to find the right day. When we finally settled on March 5th, I had no idea that was my grandparents wedding anniversary.  This made the day even more special for us. My grandparents are a couple I have always admired and looked towards as an example of true celestial marriage. Their example is one David and I hope to emulate in our own family. This night we celebrated at The Downtown Grill in Charlottesville, Va. I could have sat all night and listened to their amazing life stories.

The next most recent was Thanksgiving 2014. Grandma had just been diagnosed with cancer and it still seemed to be a bit of a awkward subject to talk about, especially with her. David and I hosted dinner in our home. I remember feeling particularly uncomfortable around her, not really sure what to say.  Grandpa was telling all sorts of stories and we were ready to eat, and patiently waiting for him to finish a story. It was then that Grandma said to him "would you hurry up and say the prayer so we can all eat!!". We all laughed and then enjoyed a wonderful dinner together. She is mostly hidden in the picture below, but you can still see her great smile.

Everyone who knows Grandma and has had a baby, has been fortunate enough to receive one of her gorgeous baby blankets. My girls, Aliza and Charlotte have loved these blankets until they mostly fell apart. One Sunday at ice cream Charlotte show up with her "blankie" that was just in shambles and Grandma would have nothing of the sorts. She insisted that Charlotte pick out a new blanket and trade in her old one. It took a long time to convince Charlotte to hand over her beloved blanket she had loved since birth. But she finally consented and picked out a new one. Now, Grandma never let me have her old blanket to save away in her keepsake box, which I'm still a little sad about. But Charlotte has loved on her new blanket so much, that it almost resembles the old one. I believe she let all the girls pick a blanket from her stash that night.   

Carmen with her new blanet:    

Charlotte with her new blanket....

Her sleeping with the old one.

I have always carried great memories of family reunions with me. I'm sure this is a tradition that Grandma and Grandpa started with hopes of keeping their family closely linked together. I've included pictures from a reunion held in Utah. I'm not sure of the year, but must have been 2008 or so. This particular day we enjoyed a picnic and family Olympics at a park in Provo Canyon.

While David was trying to teach Carmen how to fish, Grandma walked up and observed for a few minutes. Then she wanted to have a try! I love that she was so down to earth to jump right in and fish with Carmen.

And something I'm sure many grand kids are going to mention in their memories of Grandma, are her "hug dollars".  During family reunion, it was tradition that if you gave grandma a hug, you would get a dollar. You could give her as many hugs as you wanted during a day, but you only got one dollar per day. But everyday was a fresh start. She greatly depended on the honor system. With so many grand children and great grandchildren, I'm sure she couldn't keep track of who had already gotten their dollar each day. At this particular reunion, not as many family members could attend due to the location of the reunion, so she must have had a larger reserve of hug dollars, because Carmen would get $2 or $3 a day!! (even when she knew she'd already gotten them)

Here she is with Carmen throwing those popper things. You throw them on the ground and they make a loud pop sound. 

 Walking on Temple Square with Carmen and David

 And this last one is also from the same reunion. This was at This is the Place park. Carmen ended up sitting in the shade with her Great Grandma and Grandpa and uncle Skip to take a rest. And Grandma looked over at her and with her finger was motioning for Carmen to come closer to her. You can see that Grandma had her purse ready to pull out another Hug Dollar!

I could go on and on about amazing memories I have of Grandma Teerlink. I'll just list some of the greatest ones:
- Family Holidays at her home, all packed into either the basement or garage
- The Christmas Nativity and being so excited to see each year what role you got to play
- Chocolate Chip Cookies, Best bread ever, homemade jam, Sunday pot roast
- I remember playing for the longest time at the hearth of the fireplace with her little winter scene with plastic figurines
- Pretending to be sick at school, knowing she would be the one to pick me up, just so I could lay on her couch and watch Disney shows
- I have a very vivid memory of spending the night with her a few nights. Liesl and Regina still lived at home. I remember the girls about to rush out the door in the morning and Grandma stopping everything to make sure we all knelt in prayer before anyone left.
- I remember she would make us run 10 laps around the house before we could have dessert
- She would almost every spring get a birds nest on her front porch. I remember her lifting us up to see the baby birds.
- For as long as I attended the Waynesboro Ward, she was the organist every sunday
- She crocheted the beautiful alter covers in Washington DC temple
- She always  wanted hugs from her great grandchildren and loved to watch them play at her feet at Sunday night Ice Cream. 

I'll stop here, but really it is Grandma's loving spirit and her devoted dedication to the gospel and her family that I will forever remember.