Grandpa, Cumorah & Hippity Hop Hansen

I have this "Wall O'Fame" that I usually put up right after we get our shipment delivered from our last house.  I have chosen photos of every family member I have... in fact, you may be up there and don't even know it (I have aunts who take pity on me ;)  

I usually don't put up photos of just anyone doing just anything. I like to get photos that show faces so that my girls can be reminded of family and good friends we left back in the States, or back in our last "home" country.

But, I just couldn't pass up putting this one up...

Grandpa, Cumorah, & Hippity Hop Hansen (the bunny)

The time stamp is correct: 8 Aug 2002

My heart melts each time I look at this photo.  It's one of my most favorite memories of Grandpa.  He was so attentive to Cumorah (as he was whenever any of my girls visited), showing her all around the garden and helping her "feed" the bunny.  But, when he got down on his knees as Cumorah got down in her one-year-old squat, I jumped to take the shot (and probably almost fell into the pond ;)

~Natalie Hansen Terry

Fixing G'ma and G'pa's roof - October 2004

I have always been impressed with how much my father, his siblings, and their spouses helped G'ma and G'pa.  They have been such good examples to me.  I think my parents have ensured their care into their elderly years ;)  

This specific time Kenn and DeLynn enlisted some of the grandsons to help out with G'ma and G'pa's roof.  I was in town visiting from Maryland, and this was right before we left for the airport - we were grabbing one last visit.

Grandma, Natalie, Eden (on lap), Cumorah

At some point I yelled up to the guys to stand close so I could take a group photo:

KC, DeLynn, Kenn, G'pa, Christian, Gordon, Shawn

I'm sad that I didn't document the story at the time, because I can not for the life of me remember what I said after taking this first photo. *But* I Do remember the horrible feeling that came over me right as the words came out of my mouth, because I thought, "Oh, Grandpa is going to be so embarrassed that I said that!"  Well, this is what happened...

You can have fun figuring out who is who in this one ;)

I was laughing so hard I'm surprised the photo didn't end up blurry.  My eyes teared up, because ... look at G'pa.  What a sense of humor!

~Natalie Hansen Terry

The Life of Gordon Hansen video

JaNae and McKay made this video for Grandpa's birthday present

Grandpa Hansen's 90th Birthday Bash

Kenn, DeLynn and Dolly joined all the family here in the Phoenix area to celebrate Grandpa Hansen's 90th birthday.  We had a BBQ, yummy dessert, games and lots of hugging and chatting.  It was a fun evening.  Thanks to everyone who planned it, set it up, made food and came out to make it a fabulous evening!

Uncle Dennis was the master BBQ'er

Aunt Shellee, Jayden (Devin/Kristen's) Daniel, Alexander

Uncle Dee and Taylor

Grandpa, Alexander and Daniel

Dolly and Stephen (Julie/Daniel's)

Aunt Shellee created a really fun fish game

Each child took turns "fishing" in grandpa's pond

They fished out these cute fish filled with candy - Aunt Shellee is so creative!

Parachute popping fun

Uncle Dee working his magic - he can make any kid laugh or cry :)

Little Suzie (McKay/Summer's)

Grandpa turns 90 years old today!

Well he made it!  Grandpa Hansen is 90 years old today.  Although many called Grandpa to share their birthday wishes, here's a few from grandchildren on facebook:

Jillyn Fluffnutter Larsen

Happy bday grandpa!

KC Hansen

Happy Birthday from Florida Grandpa!

Nicole Hansen Holland

Happy Birthday Grandpa!!! We love you!

Gordon Hansen

Grandpa! Happy birthday from your favorite grandson!!

Taylor Earl

Hey there Grandpa man. Life lesson I learned from Grandpa: don't interrupt my mom when she's talking. You always reminded me about that, and one day, it stuck. Want to let you know that we named our first son after you, and our second son after your brother Russell. He was born almost three weeks ago, and he's doing great. I hope my sons become good friends like you and Great Uncle Russ. We love you grandpa. And, don't mind Gordon's reference to being your favorite grandson, we all know it's really Cameron - can we say model airplanes?

Cheyenne Hansen Anderson

Happy 90th Grandpa! Ava tells me all the time how she misses feeding the fish & getting apples with u. We love u & miss u. Hope u are doing good.

Devin Day

Hey gpa, happy b-day, we're glad to have you right around the corner from us to see you often, we love you

Christian Hansen

Grandpa taught me to work hard and play hard. Thanks for all of the life lessons and experiences. Happy Birthday. We love you. - The Hansens

Devry Day Hall

I think the pond is the best memory for my family. The kids loved feeding the fish. And cooper loved it so much he had to jump in:) grandpa is a perfect example of hard work. Happy birthday! Cant wait for the party!!

KC Hansen

Mine was helping grandpa build the shed in the backyard, learning to hit the nail hard and straight so you didn't have to work so hard to drive it in and so you didn't have hit it so many times.

Amber Hansen Bender

Happy Birthday Grandpa! I wish I was able to be there with you on your Birthday! My favorite memory of you was when Aja and I would get to sleepover! You would open up two boxes of rice crispies cereal, so Aja and I would both get a prize! Grandpa you're the best! We love you!

Aja Hansen

HAPPY 90TH BIRTHDAY GRANDPA!!! It was fun talking with you and Aunt Shellee today! Wish I could be there to celebrate you! One of my favorite memories is when we had that big surprise wedding anniversary party for you and grandma, and we had all the cousins there, and everyone shared their talents...Love you so much Grandpa!!!

Cody Hansen

Happy Birthday Grandpa!!! I hope you're having an amazing day! My favorite memories I had with Grandpa was giving him full demonstrations of every new phone I got! I would show him all the functions it could do on top of just calling someone............I thought one time his head was going to explode! It was hilarious to just watch him.......he'd just sit there with his arms folded, shaking his head and say how incredible it was what technology can do today! I can only imagine what amazing things will be available to me if I ever reach 90! Love you so much Grandpa!!

JaNae Hansen Jorgensen

happy birthday Grandpa! My favorite memories of Grandpa are our fishing trips up at Strawberry reservoir. Getting up before the sun to make sandwiches, being stuck in the jump seat of the small yellow truck and spending the rest of the day becoming sunburned while listening to my dad and grandpa discuss bait. And of course topping it off with a trip to Granny's for a cherry chocolate malt. Love you Grandpa!

Gordon Hansen

How about this memory Grandpa.. One of my favorite memories would have to be when we would get up early to go to Lakeridge Jr High's park to fly gliders, spend a good hour or two getting the gliders ready, then spend another 1 minute as we watched the glider fall out of the sky (I'm sure there were many times when we had longer lasting flights, I just can't remember them). Then we would pack up the chairs, planes, tools, and head home:) Good times Grandpa! Love ya!

Julie Earley
My earliest memories of Grandpa Hansen are the times he would take me with him when I was 3 or 4 to hang wallpaper and paint or to clean Aunt Edith's carpet.  He'd say that I was "never too young to learn to work."  I remember hanging wallpaper with him when I was a little older and he'd make these funny noises to get my attention and then he'd point to some tool he needed. He told me that he learned that while he was in the Pacific during WWII.  Always loved to hear grandpa's stories while we worked together.

Grandpa's Zingers

Grandpa Hansen says some funny one-liners - it's too bad we can't remember them all but if one comes to mind, here's the place to put them:

• "How was your night Grandpa?" "Well, I was trying to keep track but I fell asleep on the job."
• "If you ask a dumb question, you're gonna get a dumb answer."
• "Hey Grandpa, how's it going?" "It goes when I push it."
• When he's slow movin....he says, "I'm comin'. I'm comin'...and so is Christmas!" 
• Cameron said to him one day, “well Grandpa, shuffle over here” and he said, “hey now, I’ve earned that shuffle! 
• How you doing grandpa?  "Well I've got a difficult job - I'm balancing the room"
• The other morning he said, “well . . .” and then trailed off as people do and then said, “you know I was always told that when an old person says 'well . . .' it’s a pretty deep thought."
• The other night at dinner when we were talking about how the church is particular about putting certain types of tape on walls, chalk boards, etc JaNae was trying to explain why when Grandpa cut in with, “well it’s because the tape is manufactured by the Catholics.”
• Grandpa: If you want a laugh, just follow me around
  Julie: I'm going to write that one down
  Grandpa: Don't worry, there's more coming
• While JaNae and Julie were engaged in conversation, Grandpa came strolling by, raised his hand and said, "OK Jewels are you finished? Now JaNae, you finish. And now my turn . . . Damn! I forgot what I was going to say!"
• If someone asks something like, "Is today Tuesday?" Grandpas usual replay is "all day!"
• "It's good to see you, Dad" "It's good to be seen.  At my age - it's good to be anywhere."
• At the doctors office a woman asked if she could sit down next to grandpa.  He replied, "I'll try to control myself this time."
• As they were walking back to see the doctor the nurse asked, "How are you doing this morning, Mr.  Hansen?"  He replied, "I don't know yet, I haven't seen the doctor."
• In the winter Julie looked outside and said,  "looks a little chilly out there." "Chile today and hot tamale," grandpa retorted with a wink.
• At Christmas time out of nowhere Grandpa started singing "shingle nails" [anyone else remember how this goes?]
• What's today "Wednesday . . . unless it rains." Then what day is it? "A rainy day"
• After dinner when asking if we can clear his plate he usually replies, "certainly.  My the service here is tremendous!"
• One morning Grandpa asked Shellee: "Do you have any wallpapering jobs lined up for me this morning?" Shellee said, "nope.  You don't hang wallpaper anymore, Dad, you're nearly 90 years old! Why in the world would you want to do that?" Grandpa rubbed his thumb, pointer and index fingers together and in a near whisper said, "MONEY!"
• Grandpa had been staying at JaNae's and then Shellee came to pick him up.  We explained that he'd be going with Shellee and when he was a little confused we just said, you're so popular we all want to share you.  He said, "I'm more popular than I've ever been.  Maybe I outta go out while I'm at the top."
• There was a rainstorm one day with lots of lightening and thunder.  One particularly loud clap of thunder woke grandpa from his nap.  Shellee mentioned that there seemed to be lots of thunder and without a thought Grandpa said, "Let it rip and let it roar, I'll just sit here and snore."  Shellee said, "wow, dad, where did you hear that?" Grandpa said he just made it up - pretty good for a 90 year-old-man who just woke up!
• The night before Grandpa's 90th Birthday Bash, alluding to the video we were making for him, Julie said, "Tomorrow night we've got a big surprise for you!" Grandpa smiled and said, "Well, I really like Buicks!"
• Grandpa was micromanaging his great-grandsons, Stephen and Lincoln, as they ate their dinner.  If there spoons stopped he'd prod them with "ok, you kids, keep eating" "your mouth should be chewing not talking." "come on now, you eat your dinner."  Stephen turned to him and said, Grandpa when you were a little boy what kind of choices did you make?  Bad choices, good choices, or funny choices?  Grandpa said, "I made good choices because I wanted to help my mother."  Stephen said, "did your mother ask you to eat with good manners?  Because my mother asks me to eat with good manners and so I do it most of the time."  Grandpa replied, "why don't you just eat your dinner."
• When seeing Julie's son Alexander he usually comments, "he's too cute to be a boy."
• Grandpa was sitting really quietly while Kenn, JaNae, DeLynn and Shellee chatted and they asked if he was doing alright.  He said he was just listening and then added, "If somebody's a talker, someone's gotta be a listener!"
• When one of the great grandkids complained, "I'm thirsty" Grandpa replied, "then I'm Friday" (pronounced Fri-dee).
  
  
   

Grandpa Hansen's Christmas Talk

A week before Christmas I was called by the bishopric to give the address for our Christmas program put on by our ward Choir.  Anyone who knows me understands that this is a weakness I’ve carried all my life.  I don’t mind giving talks, it’s the preparing that’s the problem.  After much time on my knees the spirit began to come to my aid.  One morning I told LeLa that I had a very interesting dream.  I dreamt that I had given my talk to primary children with the aid of two hand puppets.  We both got a laugh out of that and immediately shrugged it off.  The next morning the dream came again.  This time I said nothing but began to ponder; could this be possible?  In time, thoughts started to form; things started to come together.  About two months previous to this, I was reading one of my favorite books, Christ and the New Covenant, by Elder Jeffery R. Holland.  I came to a section where he paraphrased the scripture found in Mormon 9:12-13.  For some reason I kept going back to it until I soon had it memorized:

By Adam came the fall of man.  And because of the fall of man came Jesus Christ . . .; and because of Jesus Christ came the redemption of man.  And because of the redemption of man, . . . they are brought back into the presence of the Lord.

Two weeks prior in our temple prayer meeting, a member of the temple presidency was giving their usual spiritual message and he told how it would feel if we were to touch the hand of Jesus.  He asked us all to take our hand and rub it over the top with the other, which we all did.  He said this is exactly how it would feel.  With these two more recent bits of knowledge the spirit now had come to my aid.  I had not done any research to this point.  I hadn’t even opened up the scriptures.  There was no need.  Everything I needed was in my mind.  Now all I had to do was make the puppets which I did and then I practiced.  I knew this was what the children of my ward needed, because it was going to be simple enough for them to understand the atonement of Jesus Christ.

After I had given my talk and the meeting was over I had many people come up and said it was presented so good, differently than they had ever heard.  During the remaining meetings I had comments.  Even the next Sunday I still had comments.  I take no credit.  The sprit had come to my aid.  Many others of you have had this same experience but this time it was my turn.

Gordan Hansen

Christmas 2004