The Tutu's

My paternal grandparents spent a lot of time with my brother and me when we were kids since we were their only ever grandkids. I'm sure at some point they had insisted on us calling them the Tutu's, because that's all I've ever done. Grandma and Grandpa Tutu. I'm under the impression it has a Hawaiian meaning. We all did take a trip to Hawaii once when I was too young to remember, but my grandpa tends to bring up often that I would tug on his shirt and squeal "ocean!" to him. He taught me a Hawaiian handshake I still remember. I also ate sand. Because toddlers eat everything. I learned my lesson.


We did travel many places together but spent most of the summers at their home in Arizona where we swam nearly every day. They tried to teach us tennis, but I was always terrible at it, lobbing the ball almost over the back fence every time I bothered trying. My grandma later told me when I was more grown up that I had once said to her that she was my favorite family member because she always gave me what I wanted. That probably meant Kraft macaroni & cheese and sour cream & onion flavored Pringles.


We took road trips from California up to Washington and over to Montana where my uncle's cabin is, listening to sing-alongs all the way there, which we loved. My grandparents used to live in Washington so we stayed a few days with a friend of theirs who had a house on one of the lakes near Seattle and a small yelping dog. We also stopped at what it felt like was either in Spokane or somewhere in Idaho at a farm with some cows I had scared and some kittens I had cuddled. Over in Montana, we stayed for 8 weeks of the summer attending a kids camp only to have our mom crush us in a suffocating death hug when we stepped off of our return flight.


My grandpa took us out on a boat to fish and enjoy the sun, and they got us bicycles to ride over the gravel roads and left a sprinkler on in the backyard for us to run through in our bathing suits. My brother even witnessed a moose stick its head in through the window! Montana is beautiful in the summer, but one winter we enjoyed our first white Christmas. We took out some sleds to find good hills to slide down, though I remember being very timid about participating.


Twice we drove down into Mexico to a place called San Carlos. My grandparents owned a condo there and it has a swimming pool we used pretty much every day, too. My brother and I noticed a bunch of dead rollie pollies on the bottom of the pool that we decided to collect and pile onto the edge of the pool, only to be distraught by their sudden disappearance the following morning. One time my grandpa took us to the beach where my brother and I swam and he fished. When I was swimming a bit far out, his hook caught my skin and I panicked but unleashed it off of me and didn't bother telling anyone about it because I was too embarrassed.

While we were away from home, my grandma would help me write letters to my mom to let her know how and what we were doing. She's the one who taught me how to write postal information on an envelope. My mom kept all of my letters apparently, stashed in a drawer in her bedroom among other mementos from my childhood. We're a very sentimental, nostalgic family.

PS: It's my kittens' first birthday tomorrow. I wanted to get them tiny party hats, but couldn't find even regular party hats anywhere.