Grandpa Ralph

Oh man i just wanted to post a few little stories about grandpa ralph! We love him dearly. He is j's grandpa. He is currently living with J's mom and dad in cedar city utah. His amazing wife passed away a couple years ago so J's mom dayna has been doing such an amazing job with taking care of grandpa Ralph. Grandpa Ralph is 91 years old. He has had many strokes and from this He has short term memory loss and so i feel for him soo much because he wants to remember sooo bad, but cant. He will take things from wherever he is at and hide it in his shirt pocket. Whenever any of us are with him we always need to pat down his sweaters to empty out his "memory tresures"(which once they were put in the sweater they are already forgotten what the memory stood for) But grandpa Ralph is such an amazing man and he always brings a smile to my face. I love that my husband was named after him also. And i love getting to see what "treasures" he puts in his shirt pockets because they are all soo different...

So We are really excited that grandpa Ralph would be comming to hawaii with us. He loves going on adventures. He is always asking "Now where do we go Now?"
So Hawaii with grandpa, and Mr. C with his broken leg and little G was quite the adventure. I will have alot of stories to post about the fun times and memories we have with grandpa Ralph and i cant wait to post but since there are soo many i want to share these few funny stories.

Now Grandpa Ralph calls Dayna (j's mom/ and his daughter) "Sis". Well he will always ask "where's Sis?" And we know that he is referring to J's mom, Dayna.

So we had decided to go on this amaxing little day trip in Mauii. It is called the Road To Hana. IT is amazing. The scenery is breathtaking. And within the trip you can stop and take hikes to your very own private waterfall for an amazing swim. I loved it soo much. Well we had been driving this road and let me tell you about this road, It is super super curvy. And i mean super Curvey. Literally it is like cork screw turn after cork screw turn. J and i tried to do this drive when we went to mauaii 3 years ago but about 7 minutes into the turns i well.... lets just say i lost it. I puked everywhere. So this trip i was prepared. I had taken my Dramamine and i was ready to go.
On this trip in Mauaii it was J and I, Our two kids, J's mom and J's brother Seth. We had rented a huge van...and Grandpa Ralph would get soo upset if Dayna didnt sit right next to him. And since he doesnt understand soo well he would always think Dayna was mad at him if she wasnt sitting by him. Poor grandpa. She wasnt at all mad at him..just with two car seats and 5 adults we all had to get split up around the van. Well on the drive we were in the car for a total of 14 hours. but that includes the stops to the various waterfalls and pits stops and the million times we stopped for pictures.
Grandpa at the end of the drive was starting to get confused on Dayna's name and would call her "wanda" (who is is wife who passed away) And we would always let him know that Wanda had passed away and that grandpa is living with dayna and that Dayna was here with him and we were all taking care of him. Well he would constantly ask over and over "now wheres Wanda?" That meant, "where is dayna". Becuase dayna would be sitting in the back by one of the grandkids trying to entertain them, and grandpa ralph couldnt see her and since she wasnt by him he would get soo confused. Well we would always politly correct grandpa and say Where wanda was and where Dayna is. Well we were on our way home from this Awesome adventure ,But we had been in the car all freakin day and the kids were soo tired and grandpa was tired and at the back of the van this is the is the conversation i hear:

Grandpa Ralph: Now where is wanda again? (and remember he has asked this over a million times)(meaning Dayna, who was up in the next row sitting next to little G.

.Mr. C (who is sitting in back by grandpa ralph, and i can tell is getting irraited with how many times this question has been asked.)

Mr.C : He kinda huffs and puffs a little bit and says "grandpa Ralph, Wanda is in Heaven!." Like duh grandpa i am four years old and i think i know everything! I mean any of you who have a 4 year old know exactly waht i am talking about. And Grandpa ralph is giggling over it and it was soo cute!
It was just sooo cute how the 4 year old had finially had it and wanted his great grandpa to understand..hahaha soo classic

Then when we were leaving kauaii for the last time grandpa was struggling walking up the curve to the car...so we check his pockets and guess what..he had taken some big ol rocks from the ground and then tucked them as comfortable as possible in his shirt and doing so he was hoping we woulndt check..hahahaha needless to say we found the rocks and thank goodness we did it before the airport security. Oh grandpa!!! we love him to death. Anways..there are soo many grandpa ralph stories so i will have to post more another day.