JENN STARK PHOTOGRAPHERS

My grandparents have always lived in England, and since about the age of five, me and my family have always lived in Canada. Well, except for the year Dave and I lived in the UK in ’07/’08. But you know what I mean. It makes the times we do get to see them extra special. They were just over here visiting this past month and flew back home to old blighty last week. I can’t believe it went so fast and I miss them already. We’ve already made them promise to come back and visit this fall. Here are three reasons why visits with my grandparents rock:

Reason #1: I think I was around 14 years old at the time. We had one of those minivans that were all the rage in the mid-1990s and all of us – my parents, my brother, my grandparents, and me – squeezed in and made the drive down to Florida over Christmas break. And what does one do in Florida? One goes to Disneyworld, of course. Now, you’ve got to understand that my family did not often frequent theme parks, carnivals, amusement parks, or anything that had any type of rides, without lots of other kids with whom we could go on these rides with. My parents seriously hate rollercoasters. So we’re at Disney, a place full of rollercoasters and swirly rides to make you sick to your stomach, and we come across this ride that seemed to start at the top of (what seemed to be at the time) a very large mountain, and very quickly made its way down. Who offers to go on said ride with us? That’s right, my grandparents, both in their sixties at the time. At fourteen years old, I was seriously concerned for their health. We rode down the mountain and the whole time all I could hear was my brother laughing behind me as my grandma made all kinds of eeks and shrieks as we rose and fell. My grandfather who sat next to me didn’t make a sound, but he was clutching on pretty tightly. We got off at the end and had to pry their fingers off the lap bars (only kidding. They made it off in one piece and walked back to where my parents were waiting without too much knee shaking or eye twitching). I remember feeling a serious sense of “my grandparents are way cooler than your grandparents” that day.

Reason #2: Ever since I can remember, my grandfather would ask me if he could come to school with me. Even when I was in kindergarten and our classroom used those miniature sized plastic chairs – the thought of his six-foot-four frame trying to sit at a desk would send me in a fit of giggles every time. As I grew up and progressed through school, still the same joke would come up and he’d ask me if any seats had opened up in my classroom. And he never did make it to my classroom – that was until my last year in high school, the spring before I graduated. I was doing a project on a hot issue in sport, and I chose football fanaticism/hooliganism in the UK. And I got to tell my grandfather that a spare desk had finally opened up in my classroom and invited him along to listen to my presentation and even add in a few words of his own experiences. Yet another moment where I was immensely proud to have the grandparents I do (I also rocked that school project, by the way!).

Reason #3: I mentioned that Dave and I spent a little bit of time living in the UK recently. When we first arrived, we planned to spend some time where we were originally planning on living and working, before spending some time traveling around mainland Europe. It’s a bit of a long story, but I will say that we were sat on the beach the day after we arrived to our town, staring out into the ocean, and I called my grandparents and asked if we could come visit them for a few days. We hopped on a train and made an unplanned stop for a few days with them up north. We poured out our hearts about our awful experience. About how we didn’t want to spend our year living there. Wondering if we’d made a mistake. We’ll never forget those few days and how they took us in and calmed our worries. About when a call came for a position in Birmingham instead and they encouraged us to go ahead with our dream. And how nice it felt to know that they were only a short train ride away when my whole life they’d been across an ocean. They are pretty awesome grandparents and I love every second we get to spend with them. We currently accepting offers of all expenses paid flights to England…anyone?

Ok, I lied. Below are reasons #4 and #5…(and I love my brother too…)

- Jenn xx