Denver & Grandpa Walking by the Sea

As I walked along the racing waves I made up a song about Denver and I walking by the sea and how great it was to be free.

Denver & The Big Rocket

"Denver, when I was a boy we went to the Moon on a big rocket like this."

Denver just yawns.

Denver & Disney

My grandson Denver and I at the Magic Kingdom in Disney World. I missed my grand daughter but she went to the Magic Kingdom before Denver. Mark and Becky are great parents and fun was had by all:).

A Perfect Christmas

I am as tired as I've ever been. On Christmas day I played too hard with my Grandson Denver. I only get to see him twice a year and this is the first time he remembered me as his Grandpa Vollrath. I finally found something I'm a expert on. I am a good grandfather. No I'm not perfect at it but I try to be the best Grandpa I can be. All grandchildren are miracles of imagination.

My favorite Moment of the year is when I take a picture with my two Grandchildren on Christmas Day. The pictures are never perfect but the moment is always perfect.

I Love My Grandson

The last time I talked to my oldest son Mark he put my grandson on the phone.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Yes, you are my Grandpa and I love you."

My heart melted.

Paying for my Space Program

I took photos with my grand daughter with these two saxophones and they are in the movie Walking the Graveyard that I produced. Now they will help fund a trip with my son and grandson to see the Space Shuttle rocket to space.

Heart Broken

Yesterday my son called me with a plan. A mission to see one of the last space shuttles to lift off for space with three generations of Vollraths going to view the end of that program.

The above photo you see my Grandson Denver and Austin a friend of the family. Really Austin is part of our family, not by blood but by love. Austin is moving away and I will miss him as much as I miss my Grandson.

I just finished the second draft of a script called Heart Broken. The story is about a time I was heart broken in love and my heart stopped longer than I thought possible. It is based on my 2008 story "I was a Heart Broken Zombie" that appears in this blog.

I've been heart broken because of grandson. Half a heart filled with joy because of my grand daughter and half a heart filled with sadness because I miss my grandson.

Now I plan to journey to fill in the space between a broken heart.

Sometimes a boy just needs his Great Grandma

This blog has no real focus so here is a family story from the first day of spring.

Three hours before my Grandson Denver left with his parents to go back home a state away he began to cry.

"Go away!"

I had wore the little boy completely out. He was so tired he couldn't even look at me without crying. So he watched birds with my mother and knew the names of most of the birds he saw.

JOY

On a cold snowy first day of spring there was a Christmas Tree with presents and a Easter Basket under the tree but most of all there was JOY!

Fourth Christmas or the First Day of Spring

Fourth Christmas is here and my Grand Son and Grand Daughter are coming to open presents.

Grandson

My grandson and son in the first picture on Fourth Christmas Eve:)

Vincent is asleep from his long journey to grandpa.

The Grand Child Effect

I'm bipolar again but I know the cure. My grandson is coming for a visit and my grand daughter is over the flu. So I'll see them both soon. I can't explain how much they both mean to me or how they even my bipolar self out.

It's the Grand Child Effect. For about a week now, I've been depressed or manic alternating days.
Never in my life has the cycle been so short and until I read back this blog to myself I didn't know what was happening.

Grandchildren are the greatest gift in life.

Second Christmas

My Grandson didn't make it down last Christmas because of bad weather so I promised my Grand Daughter a second Christmas if she wouldn't unwrap his presents. Here are two photos from January 31st or as I like to call it Second Christmas:) I'm building a large doll castle based on a Disney toy play set. On Second Christmas my Grand Daughter got six princess dolls.


Yes I know, I'm spoiling her:)

Only the small picture is from Second Christmas. The larger pictures are from First Christmas.

Alone

I need to make a living and move on with my life. I've never felt this alone in my life. I missed seeing my grandson on his second birthday and haven't seen my grand daughter in three weeks.

No Pa Pa, Superman!

I begin to write this in the final seconds of my first day of my 51 year of life in this very magical life.

I live in the Golden Age of me. I live in a time of healing. My broken mind heals and for the first time in my life I have focus. For the last few days I can't smell anything. I have lost my sense of smell. This might seem like a bad thing but I know it means my mind is rewiring and my sense of smell will return.

I live in a time when my Grandchildren are the sweetest dreams of mine every to spin into reality.
Their wonderful imaginations are in full bloom.

Last week I was with my Grand Daughter and she came into her parents living room wearing a cape made out of a yellow pillow cover. My Daughter-in-Law looked at Cordelia and said;

"Tell Grandpa who you are?"

"I'm Superman Pa Pa!"

I looked at my little Grand Daughter with a smile upon my face.

"You mean Super Girl, don't you?"

"No Pa Pa, Superman!"

She stood there with clenched fists on her hips, legs apart and her chin held high in classic Superman pose. I laughed so hard I almost fell off the chair I was sitting on.

Cordelia looked a little hurt that I laughed so hard. I put my right hand on her shoulder and looked into her blue eyes.

"Grandpa will get you a Superman costume just like the one he got for your cousin Denver."

A big smile came on her face and she gave me a loving hug.

I remembered I once put a gender role on my Grandson on a family trip to the Kansas City Zoo and my son Mark got after me. For a moment I tried to do the same to my Grand daughter.
They are too young for such nonsense and I love both my little Super Grandchildren.

Cousins

Here are three pictures of my grandchildren. The middle picture is on a camp out with balloon animals made by grandpa.

Up, Up and Away

Here's a photo of Grandpa trying to teach Superboy how to fly.

Swimming in the 21st Century

When I became a pot belly human I quit swimming way back in the 20th Century.
Too much writing and not enough hiking. Only my grandchildren could get me back to the water.

I did some wading on a sandy beach on a lake in Minnesota with both my grandchildren but Cordelia got me back into a pool in a motel in Iowa.

As my son Micheal played with her in the water I used muscles I hadn't used in a decade or more in an effort to swim again.

I took Cordelia in my arms and we began to play silly water games as her daddy cannon balled into the pool over and over again.

Grandchildren don't make you old, they give you back the last part of your youth.

Red Spoons

This is a post about anger. It's about anger in a 50 year old man and about anger in a little girl not yet two years old.

I don't like camping. I've never liked camping. But camping is something I've done many times in my life to make other people happy. I joined the Boy Scouts to make my father happy and went camping for the same reason. I took my sons camping to try to get them to love nature.

Me I'm a hiker or I use to be a hiker. I've never been a camper, my heart was never in it.

I think I've went on my last camp out. Seeing my two grandchildren play around the campfire was wonderful but my mind doesn't handle stress well and hoping and praying not to have asthma attack is very stressful to me.

With stress comes my greatest enemy, my own anger. I got angry four times on my family trip.
I don't think I'll write down those moments of anger any time soon.

At the camp site I was sitting near the fire when I saw my two grandchildren dropping every red plastic spoon on the ground off of the picnic table.

"Denver give grandpa all the red spoons please."

My little grandson handed me what I thought were all the red spoons. Then I heard my grand daughter cry and scream as she fell down on the ground.

"Cordelia why are you crying?"

"She wants to give you spoons too grandpa."

Said my daughter-in-law Amanda.

"I'm sorry Cordelia, grandpa wants your red spoons too. Please give them to me."

As she stood up I saw her right hand was clenching red spoons, knifes and forks. She handed them to me and I wiped the tears from her eyes and gave her a hug and a kiss.

How little I differ from my Grand Daughter, I don't understand something and I get angry.

Grandpa is Coming!

This little boy won't remember me but I love him with all my heart. I'm going on a five day road trip to be with both my grandchildren, my sons and those two wonderful mothers of my grandchildren.

Grandpa is coming Denver Vincent Vollrath!