We often got each other a record for each other's birthdays. One year I gave her the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds". In those days, we, and our friends, would have dance parties in celebration of the latest new songs. She hated this record and returned it. That record,  Pet Sounds, is considered one of the best - all time. I never understood her decision and I can't recall what she got instead. Normally, our musical tastes aligned.
For some reason, I remember her 1st grade birthday and her getting a blue dress in size 6X. She was like a little princess. It had a fluffy skirt and she had a hair-band. She loved to twirl in it.

Terri was like a little girl who never wanted to grow up. She was so small but mighty. Her three boys and one girl can thank heaven for the interesting life they all lived.  I remember visiting her and Kevin with My hubby Bill and our two oldest kids. We sat on the sofa and one of the Great Danes sat right next to me on the sofa. It took up most of the space but I love animals too so just snuggled in. This was summer of 1974 or 1975.  She gave us soda drinks. I think just Stacy and JW were her only kids at that time. I shared her love of horses as I had one as a kid. She wasn’t much more than a kid herself.  Lovable though. Will alwsys remember her smile (impish) and her pretty long hair. Rest now and ride in heaven.

Mom got a red Pontiac Firebird with a T top.  She loved that car until..  She was driving down St. George Boulevard and was passing a Safeway on the North side of the street and came to a stop at the stop light. When a police car slammed into the back of her.  Scared me to death and I'm pretty sure her dad was with us too.  When the officer cam to see if we were ok he told us that he was distracted by the ponies in the Safeway parking lot!  Well shortly after that they got rid of the Firebird.  I think we were all sad to see it go. Here is a picture of it in it's pre crash glory.

I found this fun letter with some old photos from my grandparent's house.  I thought it was cool to see her keeping in touch with her traveling dad.  I thought it was funny to see how late she was up too.

Mom loved to read and read from Tolkin to Kierkegaard.  Here is a poem she wrote.

When my great grandpa would call my grandparents he would always ask if my mom and dad were still "Smok'n as hard as they can?" They really did smoke a ton, chain smokers to be sure.  So to get him they made this photo.

I remember mom was listening to the song short people by Randy Newman in the car.  When it was done I asked her why she liked that song, because we were both short people.  She just laughed and told me something along the lines of, if you can't laugh at yourself life is no fun. Basically don't take yourself too serious.

A great story I was told about when I was young.

So I guess mom put me in the car to go somewhere and at the last minute had to run back into the house to get something.  I guess I got bored and started pushing buttons and locked the doors.  The car was running and I ended up somehow putting it in drive and mom had to climb up on to the hood because she was going to get pinned against the garage wall. Then she had to try and teach me how to unlock the doors so she could get in.  I guess it took a while, but she finally got me to unlock the doors.