HAPPY 95TH BIRTHDAY

You read that right, my maternal grandmother is 95 years old TODAY! For all intents and purposes, she is the only grandparent I have ever known, so she's really doing me a solid by lasting as long as a theoretical 4 grandparents would anyway. I feel like I have all my grandparents present with her!

Here's me and grandma in San Diego in August 2009. This face says "Holy %#@*! I'm so stoked to be here with my favorite grandchild!!"

And who can forget the time 10% of the family showed up to celebrate her 90th birthday back in 2007?

And then our little branch. Don't you love how we are all making it a photo shoot for ourselves coughshannonheathermecough

So, when we were in Michigan in 2004 for the reunion, I learned that grandma was a basketball forward in high school. Was I the only one who was surprised girls basketball even existed in the the 20s and 30s? And was I the only one who envisioned girls in hoop skirts and bonnets on a basketball court? The real surprise came at Mother's Day this year when I managed to extract grandma's wedding story from her... she ELOPED. (Or so she says). Scandalous! She was a live-in nanny and after the drive back from Indiana (or Ohio?) where they were married... she went back to the family's house and grandpa went back to his. LOLOLOLOLOL. Saucy. I guess Vegas would have been a little too far to drive to.

We all need to agree to work harder to extract these details from her. You know she's full of them. That's why she's so quiet all the time. SO MANY AMAZING MEMORIES TO MULL OVER.

Welp, Happy Birthday Dorothea!!! Love you, and here's to another 95 years!!