My Papa

Like I last mentioned in a past post my grandfather passed away March 14th of renal failure.  I thought I'd share a few of my fun memories of my time with Papa. 

One of my favorites was when I was real young and my papa still worked for the railroad. I'd spend nights with my Nana every now and then and we'd go to "visit" my papa at work. What that meant was standing on a bridge near Hansen Park in Milwaukee and wave as papa slowed the train down and hung out the wave back. 

I believe this was Christmas 2005

The smile in the picture above was pretty much the standard for Papa, and if you asked him to smile nicer... below is usually the smart ass response you got....

The next one is my graduation from college. Again, pretty typical loving and proud Papa.

Another great memory I have is from shortly after I took lessons to learn how to golf. My papa and I went golfing together on one of Milwaukee's small Par 3 courses. It was the last hole of the day and I hit my tee shot on to the green in one shot for the first time, but the fun didn't stop there. As my ball kept rolling, my Papa started freaking out, I wasn't sure why though. Not until a while later did I realize how close I had become to having a hole-in-one. Sadly, it wasn't, but the memory of his face and reaction to my tee shot will always be a great one.

Papa and Jan with my brother and me for my wedding rehearsal dinner.

The last of my pics are from  this past Christmas. I'm so glad this year worked out for Chris and I to be with my extended family. It was truly a blessing to have this one last holiday with him in person. You can see my belly was poking out a little bit under my Packer sweatshirt, it was a game day :)