what my phone saw- mexico edition

looking through my phone today i have all kinds of photos from mexico that my phone took. 

she loved mexico! she was a little scared in puerto vallarta when she thought her owners husband was gonna get his nike's stolen (off his feet, by a local) but otha' than that she saw some fun stuff!!

it was actually a mexican cruise??? (shrug) i wont tell the aloha lei police....

 

tiniest baby crab ever. found this in a dish i bought. poor thing must have crawled across the street from the ocean into this store and got stuck in this bowl. he was the size of a pomegranite seed.

so they make towel animals on your bed when you leave your cruise cabin at night. this was creepy...like it was waiting...i made shane disassemble it right away!

coz who wants to eat sad food? oh, and the sign below seems to be trying to convince us that yes indeed, it IS happy food. im suspicious!

i'm big in mexico. i knew it would spread.....hugs!!!

who puts a disco ball on their balcony? someone funky that's who! i wish i knew them.

this is mollyes beach bag. the girl knows the essentials. afro wig. check. itch cream. check. schedule of cruise events. check. she is a walking par-tay!

i can only share these 7 photos from the phone.

she tends to take inappropriate photos. we had to have a talk about it.

heeellllo-im talkin' to you!!!

about a month or so ago i did something so strange that i can't stop thinking about it so naturally i will share....

here i was driving home from work feeling kinda overwhelmed with a huge staging install and all kinds of other things on my mind. 
i think to myself, "oh, i'll call my grandma, that will cheer me right up". 

 i imagined my grandma at home in a tiny (i mean tiny) little country town in montana sitting in her chair with the remote in her lap watching baseball. 
i reached for my phone and brought it up towards my face to dial. my stomach flip flopped. my grandma has been gone for 7 months. 
i started sobbing in a way i haven't in quite sometime-about 7 months to be exact. 
the cars behind me started honking and i was literally frozen. 
so i did what anyone would do. i pulled over and called my mom.

through my tears i told my mom what i had done and asked her if i was crazy (okay, okay, i was having a very dramatic moment) "why would i have forgotten, why would i have picked up the phone to talk to her when i know she isn't there?" and ya know what mom said?? just the right thing that's what. 
mom said, "she is there, she is there with you right now. she is talking to you so just talk back."

i'm sure this was a typical hollyweird scene. 
here i am, in traffic at hollywood and highland, 4 choppers above me (some idiot in a tow truck decided to give the cops a 3 hour chase) im sobbing but trying really hard to hide it from the guy next to me in the truck who is looking at me with concerned eyes wondering why i am bawling. 
car behind me is annoyed that i'm not paying attention and a toothless woman is asking me for money on my passenger side window- she see's my tear stained face and looks at me like i'm crazy and backs away from my car.
 i look crazy to the toothless homeless lady. 
cute. 

i got home where my entire family was watching the jerk-off that had every policeman from l.a. to glendale following him on t.v. and shane sees my face and does that thing he does.
 its kinda like a puffer fish-he gets all big and his face gives a "what happened and whose heads comin off?" look. 
i tell him the stupid stupid thing i did. 
he says, "oh honey, you just forgot. that's so sad, c'mere you need a 5 second hug". 
as he wraps himself around me i start to cry and smile at the same time.

i think of my grandma and all the times since her passing that i have said to my mom that i wish she would show me something that told me she was around me. 
i just can't take that she is gone and that's it. i just love her too much for her to be gone.

my mom always answered that maybe i needed to look harder. today i sit here and think of all the little things that i have seen that told me she was around me. 
its like i'm just now opening my eyes and getting it. 

check out the top left-see the O?

 

this is a photo from the day i left my grandma olsen's home in culbertson montana.
 i knew that it would be the last time in her home- a home i had spent weeks at every summer as a child and i suspected it would be my last time in culbertson, montana all together. 
it was so hard to drive away that day and as i drove the 5 hour trek to the airport i was marveling at the beauty and trying to soak up everything i could (and probably crying of course) from the slow moves of the country life. 
i looked out my drivers window and i saw an "o" in the sky in the form of an -i don't even know what!- it's not a cloud like the other clouds but it's a definite "o". 
i had to keep looking because i couldn't believe the absolute perfection of this "o". 
how could that NOT be a sign? 
how could that NOT be from my gramma?

okay okay i hear ya-do you hear me talking back?

keep talking-i will listen......

gramma vera olsen

december 12, 1917-october 21, 2011
isn't she sweet?