Hi! My name is Grandma Kc. I live in sunny Southern California with my hubby, Grandpa Richard and our two three cats, Twiggy, Twursula and Shebee. We have an amazing granddaughter named Amara who is 10 years old. Amara lives one mile from us with the best Mommy and Daddy ever, four cats and two dogs. This blog is all about her and the fun all of us have together!
Thanks for stopping by AmaraLand!
This is a special memory from my own childhood.
Last week I told you about waiting for my Winky Dink kit to arrive while sitting in the kitchen in front of the green sink and watching the clock. Sarah, one of my Grandma Blog Buddies at Magnolia Surprise commented on the fact we had a green sink. I told her that sink deserved its own post.
It wasn’t just any green sink. It was a brand new 1956 Frigidaire sink and dishwasher combination. Yes, I said dishwasher. I remember that sink and everything about it! Daddy worked for Consumers Power Company, which is the electrical company for Michigan. This meant our house was always electric! It also meant that he got discounts on appliances and things. That old house was built in the 1890s and Dad was slowly remodeling it. He had already replaced the back porch and the furnace and was working on the kitchen. He put in a big new picture window where the old small paned one used to be. It made the kitchen so much lighter. I almost remember the white sink that he replaced next.
The whole family went to some appliance store in Jackson and they spent hours picking it out. Hours as in my sister and I were very bored! Hours as in all they did was argue about which one to get. The fun part was going to Jackson meant we got to go out for dinner. There was this cafeteria in Jackson and it was my favorite place to go eat.
Getting the new sink installed wasn’t a peaceful event. Judy and I wanted to stay and watch. We would have gladly helped but it got loud. We knew when it was smart to get out of the house and find somewhere else to play. My mother was certain Daddy wasn’t doing things right. She wasn’t an easy person to please and at some point, he became so frustrated that he threw his hammer and dented our brand new green sink and dishwasher. I know that is how it was dented because my mother never forgot anything and she would tell anyone who walked into the kitchen, “That is where Glen got mad and threw his hammer.”
I want to thank Robert Seger at Automaticwasher for giving me permission to share this photo.
This is exactly what our new sink and dishwasher looked like. I visited that old house in 1971 and that sink and dishwasher were still there but the dishwasher no longer worked. I can’t wait to go back and visit that house again and see how different that kitchen looks now.
Last week Amara attended ABC Cake Camp and had a great time honing her skills. We love ABC Cakes. They made our wedding cake and many of Amara’s birthday cakes.
Cake Camp was from 10AM to noon Monday through Friday. There were probably 10 other students in the class and Amara was thrilled when one of them was a friend of hers from school! The two girls sat next to each other for the entire week. Cake Camp would have been fun anyway but sharing it with a friend made it even better.
I was lucky and got to go with her Mommy on four of those days to drop Amara off and pick her up. While Amara did Cake Camp, we spent the time together shopping (mostly produce, Michael’s and Joann’s) and having fun just spending time together. It also meant I got to listen to Amara read to us from the curriculum what they would be creating each day. They had three different teachers over the 5 days, “each teaching their own specialty” as Amara explained it.
It also meant I was there to see and photograph (poorly) with my phone all of their wonderful creations. The one day I didn’t go with them Jenna sent me a picture of her amazing cake. Amara brought that cake with her Saturday night and we all had a big piece of it. It was an Under the Sea themed cake. She was especially proud of her turtle and sea horse she made with marbled fondant using a candy mold!
Jenna and I both love to bake and decorate but neither of us have ever been very successful with fondant so since Amara has officially had a class on how to make animals out of fondant she is officially the Fondant Queen and will have to share her knowledge with Mommy and me. I’ve already found some really cute Garden Cupcakes that are topped with little fondant vegetables that I am hoping she can teach me how to make!
This week Amara is off to college! A weeklong class in video gaming and programming! For weeks now, I have been talking about Amara starting college! I just love the way it sounds even if it is just a one-week summer school course!
She is so well rounded! We are so very proud!
This is a special memory from my own childhood.
Growing up in Michigan in the early fifties meant very poor TV reception. We were 90 miles from Detroit, which at the time was the closest TV stations. We only got three channels — and never all on the same day! We didn’t get to watch a lot of TV but that was mostly because we couldn’t get any reception. I used to hate it when you could hear the show and the screen was nothing but snow or a rolling picture. I used to love it when we could get Saturday morning cartoons to come in!
Winky Dink and You was one of my favorite shows! It ran from 1953-1957. I was probably five when I convinced my mother to mail away and get me the Winky Dink kit. Now if you’re not as old as I am let me explain Winky Dink to you. It was cartoon clips that featured Winky and his dog and at some point, they would need you to connect the dots on the screen to build them a bridge or something to get them out of a dilemma. You needed the special green Winky Dink screen to put on your TV so that you could use the special Winky Dink marker to connect the dots! I wanted so bad to connect those dots and I must have begged forever to get her to order it. You couldn’t buy the kit at the store or at least you couldn’t buy it at any of the stores in our itsy bitsy town.
The minute she mailed the order, I got a dining room chair and sat down in the kitchen in front of the clock. At five years old, I don’t even know if I knew how to tell time but I can see that big clock on the wall over the green kitchen sink. It had a second hand and I was watching it go around when my mother asked me what I was doing. Don’t know why it wasn’t obvious. I was waiting for the 6 weeks to go by and my Winky Dink kit to arrive!
The absolute worst part of this story is that it never came.
Looking back, I wonder if she even ordered it!
April 29th, 2014 our friends Fred and his Mom became United States citizens in a special ceremony in Oklahoma. They were very excited, as it had been a lot of hard work to pass the citizenship test. We couldn’t be there for the big day so I had promised them we would celebrate the next time they came to southern California. On June 22, 2014, we had that celebration!
Fred’s Grandma was here from Vietnam and it would be our first time meeting her. It was nice to have another Grandmother in the house! I really wanted to make this special for all of them and since they were coming less than 2 weeks before the 4th of July finding decorations was easy! I had the driveway lined with small flags and red white and blue decorations everywhere.
Jenna’s Mom had even found red, white and blue glitter and stars and I had them scattered all over the counter and the tables. Amara had an absolute blast gathering it up and throwing it in Fred’s Mom’s hair! Of course, Fred had to help, too. Then somewhere along the way, they found a ball of yarn and decided they needed to run around the house with yarn, trying to confine us to our chairs. Crazy kids!
I had decided we needed to have a very American meal to celebrate them being Americans! We could have had barbequed hamburgers but that just seemed too ordinary and I knew they had them at home. I decided on meatloaf, fried chicken, homemade potato salad and corn on the cob. I made red, white and blue fudge for dessert. I thought about making apple pie but I knew that Fred’s Dad would be disappointed if he didn’t get brownies so I made those instead!
When dinner was over the kids were bored so playing in the water seemed like a good solution. They had a blast and Fred’s Mom had almost as much fun chasing them as they had chasing her. Since the sun was starting to set, it got cool quickly and they were back in the house for a game of Ponopoly!
It was a great day and we really want to congratulate our friends!
This is a special memory from my own childhood.
I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t afraid of them. Nowadays my family love me and will warn me when to close my eyes if there is one in a show or movie and they will tell me when it is safe to open them again. They understand that I don’t touch the page in a magazine or book if there is a picture of one of them. They know that I don’t even like the word so we refer to them as “S words”.
This is the story of when they truly became my worst fear.
I was probably about six years old and I remember that I used to love to go out in the garden and pick strawberries or corn on the cob but instead of going bare foot I would always put on my rain boots to go out in the garden. There was also a section of sidewalk on our street where the grass was high on both sides. I had seen them on the sidewalk there before. I never walked down that section of sidewalk, I ran just as fast as I could.
That fall we went to the Hillsdale County Fair! I loved going to the fair and riding all the rides and eating cotton candy. I remember being dragged through the 4H building by my mother to see the animals, the exhibits and all the contest entries. Boring! I wanted to go on the Ferris wheel or the Tilt-o-Whirl. I was a kid then.
That evening we had gone through the House of Mirrors, another one of my fair favorites, and we were waiting for the fireworks display to begin. I don’t know how I let my Dad talk me into going in the Reptile House. I think he thought he could lessen my fears. I can see those boas in my mind’s eye wrapped around what looked like branches. I asked Daddy why they stayed up there and he explained that the bright heat lights they had focused on them made them very content to stay right where they were.
I was OK with that answer until sometime in the middle of that night. I awoke to the sound of loud thunder. The county was hit by a terrible lightning storm and the power went out. Since Daddy worked for the power company, it meant he had to go out, too. That did not alleviate my fears. While my sister slept, I sat cross-legged in the middle of our bed for the rest of the night. Even though our bedroom was on the second floor – and 7 miles from the fairgrounds –, I was convinced that those snakes were all on their way to get me. I would not get out of bed. I knew they were coming.
I have never gotten over this fear and I am OK with that! Daddy tried!
Who knew we would have a storm!
Five days after Amara got out of school for summer vacation she had oral surgery and had 11 teeth extracted. Eleven! Extracted sounds so much better than pulled! Her dentist was very concerned that her baby teeth just weren’t coming out fast enough and her permanent teeth were trying to come through and were looking for a place to go!
Amara came through it all like a champ and her dentist certainly seems to have been right as you could see new teeth in her gums that very same day. Now they are coming up like crazy!
But the best part of this story is the amazing personal letter that Amara got from the Tooth Fairy. In the past the Tooth Fairy has always brought Amara $5 for a tooth but she had no idea what he might bring her for all of these. The next morning she awoke to find the teeth, $30 and the following letter under her pillow.
Dearest Amara,
I regret to inform you that your tooth donation has exceeded the Tooth Fairy Labor Accord, which limits the number of teeth collected from exceeding six. While your offer of eleven teeth is humbling, I simply cannot take that many without violating the accord. In lieu of the additional compensation, I have left your teeth for you to keep as a souvenir. I did however take a picture for the archives. Eleven teeth at once. Wow. I am very impressed.
Best luck and good tooth health,
TF
Best letter ever from the Tooth Fairy!