Grand-maman

Today we got together with my dad's side of the family to celebrate my grandma's 82nd birthday. She is so cool. We had nice long chats about life and I find she is so impressive in so many ways. Mostly because I feel like she is very open minded for an 82-year-old. Some members of the family have been rallying to try to get her to want an iPad so they'd get her one for Christmas, but honestly I don't think she'll ever open up to that idea - but she is open in the sense that she listens and always answers very diplomatically in a "I'm gonna stick with my way of doing things" kind of way. I am amazed at how much change she has seen in her lifetime. I realized today that it was a big deal for her to get a TV, first a black and white one and then a colour one. It was a big deal that her son (my uncle) had to take Ritalin in elementary school - ADD was a very new concept back in the 60s. Not only that, I started thinking about how different our newlywed lives were. Here is a bit of compare and contrast:

My grandma and grandpa met at church - Paul & I met at a rugby party.
They had a very small wedding - we had a fairly big wedding.
They went to Quebec for their honeymoon and my grandma was so nervous about the wedding night that she took her bath with her watch on (which totally ruined her watch) - We went on a huge cruise ship for our honeymoon and neither one of us was very worried about the wedding night.
They came back to Montreal after their honeymoon with 10$ and the hope that my grandpa's paycheck would arrive soon - We came back to Montreal after our honeymoon with some money in savings and me (the wife) with a full time job to support us both.

Some similarities now:
They didn't have a car when they got married - We don't either.
My grandpa's name was Paul - Paul's name is Paul.
They dated for three years before they got married - we did too.
Then they had 52 wonderful years of marriage together - we sure hope we will!

That's it for today. I love love love my grandma. Oh also, she dried and kept the rose we gave her on our wedding day. She's awesome.