Look who’s here just in time for Mother’s Day! Our very favorite!
She’s getting to see all the sports…and she even got to power wash! Good things all around!
Happy Mother’s Day to GJ, Lulu, and me! 🙂
Camp
I love this picture of Daddy…
My mom out of town (a very rare event!) and Daddy had to pick me up from my two week stay at Camp Ozark. Neither of us were used to doing those type of things without Momma in charge, but we did our best. Well, our best wasn’t quite good enough! We made the 2 hour drive back to Little Rock and then realized my laundry bag with ALL of my clothes from camp was still in my cabin. Oh no! So, we drove all the way back to Mt. Ida, Arkansas and there was my laundry bag waiting on the camp porch. We got a good laugh out of it and took turns taking each other’s picture with the laundry bag!! I need to scan in my picture with it but I love this one of Daddy – still smiling after 4 hours back and forth in the car with another 2 hours still to go back home! We did our best, but we weren’t quite as good without Momma around. Just like now, we will do our best but we’ll never be quite as good without Daddy around. I’m going to miss him so much.
It’s been so nice this week to relive memories with old friends and share stories of Daddy with new friends that never got a chance to meet him. It’s hard and we are sad but we will be ok.
More pictures
I have so many more pictures I want to share – so I’m going to do just that! Someday I’ll scan in every single picture that is in all those containers in Naples but, for now, these are some more of what I have.
Little Stevie Patterson…
Butterball!
Up, up and away!
Engagement party in Montgomery…
the race car!
Two of my very favorite people…
Birthday boy at Disney!
Gotta love my long high school hair! Just about as long as it is now!
Obviously the cars were washed by hand!
Little Stevie Patterson had quite the dance career on stage, or so I was told!
The bunny ears…
and the retaliation!
The three Maxwells!
Holding court with my Vandy girls!
Merry Christmas!
He did always love Christmas time!
Daddo and baby Samantha…
Good times at the Bass Pro!
Baby Delaney!
Rooooar!
Ferraris all around!
He was a really good golfer. I am not.
Steve the engineer!
Looking sharp at John’s house!
New car!
Just missing miss smiley Samantha!
I’m thinking this note was stuck in a package sent to me at college. I love this so much.
So many good memories, so many good times!
Daddy
This is what I posted on social media yesterday. It’s so hard to sum things up in a neat little post but I did my best.
I am heartbroken to say that my dad passed away yesterday. He died on 4.4.22 at 11:11 am which, if you knew him, is very fitting that he chose such a precise number. We miss him so much but feel so lucky that we got to love him and be loved by him for as long as we did. He was extraordinary. He believed in hard work and did just that his entire life to give us the best of everything. Incredibly smart and always curious, he spent his life learning about things that he loved. Whether it was Lionel trains, Ferraris, or watches, he never did anything halfway! Being our dad was the thing he did best though. Despite everything he had to do in life and career, I always knew that home with us was the place he loved to be most. He loved Christmas; he loved working in the yard; he loved building things whether it was our awesome treehouse or shelves for my dorm room; he loved taking us to Disney World. He loved me and my brother and my mom.
He and my mom were married for 48 years and she was his best friend. They were always quite the match – two of the kindest people you will ever meet. The love and care she has shown him over his lifetime, and especially the past few years, will serve as a shining example to us all about how to treat the ones you love most. My dad lived with Parkinson’s for almost 25 years and, despite all the hardships and being forced to give up things that he loved, I never once heard him complain. Never once. That just wasn’t his style. I will continue to live my life trying to make him proud. I will forever hear his voice in my ear asking me if I’m using my best judgement. I will tell my kids how much I love them and how proud I am of them just as he always did with me. My entire life people have told I’m just like him. I can think of no better compliment. How lucky am I to be Steve Patterson’s daughter?
I could only include so many photos on Facebook and Instagram…but I can put as many as I want here! 🙂
Man, he was the very best.
Grandfriends Day
Wednesday was Grandfriends day up at school and the kids had the very best around to visit them! They all had to wear their school shirts…look at my cute twinkies!
They had both Lulu and Granddaddy as well as Susan visit their classrooms! Awesome!! I was volunteering and didn’t get any pics but Susan snapped two selfies…
and Spencer’s teacher got a cute picture!
I think everyone had fun seeing the classrooms, meeting friends and teachers, and getting a glimpse into the kids’ day. That’s more than they’ve even let the parents do this year!
I also had to pick the kids up a little early that day and caught this of the Bobbseys walking down the hall. Doesn’t get much cuter!
Love my cuties and thankful for all the “grandfriends” that love them so well!