About Memorial Day: Memorial Day is a holiday celebrated in the United States of America to honor those who have given their lives in service to their country. (Other countries also have a memorial day.) Many Americans also honor their ancestors, family, or friends on Memorial Day. Some people also honor veterans that are still living, which I think is cool, although Veterans Day is set apart for honoring all veterans.

Teach your family and grandchildren the significance of Memorial Day. Enjoy time with them. Here are some ideas:

• Talk to your grandchildren about the meaning and importance of the holiday.
• Write a letter to them or share a journal entry.
• Show your respect and appreciation through your example.
• Go with your grandchildren and family to decorate a grave of a soldier of ancestor.
• Together, thank a living veteran in person or by letter or email.
• Attend a parade, concert, or festival. Visit a national cemetery or monument.
• If you can’t be with your grandkids in person, have a live video chat with them. (See my post “How to Video Chat with Your Grandkids”)

Here are a few websites that offer free Memorial Day activities and craft ideas for children:

• FreeKidCrafts.com
• FamilyEducation.com
• Apples4TheTeacher.com

Enjoy this Memorial Day with your grandchildren!

- Grandpa Shayne

We’d like to hear from you. Please comment below to tell us how you like to celebrate Memorial Day with your grandkids.

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If you enjoy talking with your grandchildren on the phone, you will love video chatting even more! It’s video conferencing software you run on your computer that lets you talk with and see your family. It’s just like in the Jetsons cartoon—live audio and video.

What could be worth more than seeing the grin on your grandchild’s face when they see you talking with them on the screen? They’ll be proud to show you how much they’ve grown and to show off their first missing tooth. Even grandbabies will respond to your voice and smiling countenance.

Somethings are just better communicated face to face, where you can see expressions and gestures. Compared to letters, email and even telephone calls, video calls can make conversations much more interesting and intimate. You’ll have more to talk about, and your grandkids will more easily remember you or your face.

Now watch this video. It’s full of examples and cool ideas for you.

A grandparent’s job is to give positive encouragement; to be a cheerleader and a talent scout. ~Grammy Tanda Packer

Fun things you can do on your video chat: read storybooks and show them the pictures, make up stories, sing, dance, play games, help with their homework, be playful, play peek-a-boo, make funny faces, and tell knock-knock jokes.

Ask your grandkids to sing and read to you, and tell you jokes and stories. Have them show you their drawings, crafts, homework, new clothes, acrobatics and somersaults.

Options for free video chat software

You’ll need a computer, a webcam with a built-in or separate mic, and a broadband Internet connection. Different programs use their own protocols, so you and your family will need to use the same software. Each of the following programs allow you to make video calls worldwide.

iChat from Apple is an application that comes free with every Macintosh. If you have a Mac, iChat is the best software for video chatting. You can even have a video conference with up to 3 other Macs at once. Since it uses the AIM protocol, iChat works well with AIM on other computers.

AIM is an application you can download to your computer. It uses the same protocol as iChat.

Skype is another popular program for making video calls. Download the program and sign up for a free account. Computer-to-computer calls and video calls are free.

Google voice and video chat is integrated into gmail in your web browser. It’s a great option if you and your family have gmail accounts. Anyone can sign up for a free gmail account.

How to get started

1. Choose an application and install it. (Consider what your family may be using.)
2. Launch the program.
3. Create a screen name and password (first time only).
4. Share your screen name with your family.
5. Arrange a time to call.
6. Turn on your webcam.
7. Log in to your chat program.
8. Initiate the video call by clicking the appropriate buttons, or click “Accept” if your family initiates the call.
9. Click the video icon by their name to see their video. (Note: Some programs make you click a button to allow them to see your video.)
10. Enjoy!

Videophones are another option for video conferencing. These are special phones with an LCD screen. No computer is needed, but they need a high-speed Internet connection. You and your family both need the same brand of videophone.

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then live video is worth ten 10,000 words. ~Grandpa Shayne Packer

We know you’ll love video chatting with your grandkids! So go try it.

Enjoy – Grandpa Shayne

Announcement: This post is part of a blog carnival hosted by Susan Adcox, About.com’s Guide to Grandparents.

We’d like to hear from you. Please comment below to tell us about your videochat. What fun things did you do on the call with your grandkids.

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Spending time with your grandchildren is a gift and a blessing. For grandparents who are raising their grandchildren, they receive the gift of time every day.

For grandparents who live far away or do not have the opportunity to see their grandchildren often, the joy of seeing them and them seeing you, still exists with the use of modern technology, specifically, audio, video and digital photos. Today, I would like to focus on digital photos.

The 3 basic steps to sharing photos on the Internet

• Selecting the camera to use
• Selecting the photo viewing program to use
• Importing the pictures into the photo program

Selecting the camera

If you do not have a digital camera yet, I encourage you to do so. Digital cameras now range in price of $59.00 all the way to thousands of dollars. The inexpensive ones work very well and serve their purpose. They are actually higher quality and less expensive than they were 10 years ago.

Look for a camera that uses a memory card that fits into your computer. On your computer, you may see something like Compact Flash, Micro Drive, SD*MMC*MS, Pro*XD, or something similar to that. Your computer’s owner’s manual can help you select the correct media storage device. Most cameras also offer the option of downloading the picture using a USB cable. If you are shopping online, the product details should give you all the information. Just make sure your camera’s storage device can be used in your computer, or your camera can be connected to your computer to import the pictures.

Selecting the photo viewing program

There are several online photo services that let you organize, edit and share your photos. Many are free. The 3 that I use are Picasa, Flickr and Kodak Gallery. Today, I will focus on Picasa.

Picasa is free photo editing software from Google. Enjoy this two minute video about Picasa.

[youtube gYO2uhrIZJ4 550 336]

If you have a Google email (gmail.com) account, the Picasa service can be accessed by your Gmail account. If you do not have a Gmail account, you can create one for free at Google.com.

You will also need to install the Picasa program on your computer, which is also free. If you don’t see it as an option on the Google home page, just enter picasa.google.com in your browser to bring it up, and click “Download Picasa 3.”

Importing photos

Once you have created your Gmail account and installed Picasa, you are ready to download (or import) your pictures from your digital camera. Once you have set up the Picasa application and have downloaded pictures from your camera, the Picasa program should automatically open every time you insert a media storage device in your computer (or connect via USB cable).

Once you have downloaded the pictures from your camera, you can click on “Web Albums” on the top right portion of your screen, which will take you directly to your Google Web Album in your Internet browser.

You can also access your web album by going to www.google.com to log into you Gmail account. When you are in your account, click on “Photos,” which is located on the top left portion of the page. If you don’t see it, then click on “more” and it will be under that.

It takes a little time to maneuver around Picasa, but it is my favorite one to use. When you become familiar with the program, you can sort photos into different albums. You can also set up privacy features on your albums so only your family and friends can view selected items. Google also has a lot of nice features that are great for sharing with your family, such as calendars, blogs and groups, but more on that another time.

If you don’t have a digital camera, or have one and haven’t set up an account online to download your photos, I encourage you to do so. Picasa is free to use, and once you set it up, you can have your family upload photos to your albums for your whole family to enjoy.

Warm regards,

Kay Fontana
“The Grandcoach”
www.CoachingForQuality.com

[In future posts, GrandparentsTLC will review more ways of sharing photos online, including Apple's Macintosh iPhoto application and MobileMe.]

Have you used Picasa or another photo sharing program? How has it enabled you to connect with your family and grandkids? Please share your comments. We enjoy reading about your experiences.

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“You’ll never get me on one of them newfangled computers!” Have you ever heard a grandparent say that? Are they intimidated by the Internet? Not willing to give today’s technology a try? We’ll show you what you can do to get them online.

Who should read this

• Grandparents who are privileged to have one or more of your parents still living.
• Parents who would like to facilitate a healthy relationship between your children and their grandparents and great-grandparents.
• Anyone who knows a grandmother or grandfather who is reluctant or afraid to dip their foot into the internet.

Technophobia: the fear or dislike of advanced technology. Why doesn’t everybody welcome new technology? Fear of the unknown? Afraid they will ruin or break something? They don’t understand and don’t remember?

One problem is that many senior grandparents just don’t know what they are missing — photos of the grandbabies, emails, family blogs, Facebook, text messages, video chats, sharing their life story. They are not enjoying all the new opportunities to communicate with their families; sometimes from their own stubbornness.

The benefits outweigh the fear

A friend shared a story about a coworker, a grandfather who refused to learn to send text messages using his mobile phone. My friend encouraged the grandfather to learn so he could send text messages to his grandchildren. “Just try it.” Two weeks later, the grandfather reported that he was having a wonderful time texting with his grandkids.

Grandparents need to keep up with the times and communicate with the younger generations on the media the kids are comfortable using. This will enhance the quality of the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren when they may not actually see each other for many months.

Grandparents should realize that being “computer smart” is a way to get closer to their grandchildren. Also, the World Wide Web is a wonderful way to find ideas of things to do with grandkids when they visit.

My oldest sister is a great example of someone who has embraced internet technology to connect with her family. When her daughter recently encouraged my sister to get Facebook, she quibbled, “Why would I want on Facebook?” Here daughter simply replied, “Because that’s where the photos of the grandbabies are!”

So her daughter got on the computer and set up a Facebook account right then. Now my sister has really enjoys Facebook, as well as other websites, email, etc.

God gave us loving grandchildren as a reward for all our random acts of kindness. ~Janet Lanese

3 steps to get grandparents online

1. Sit together at the computer and give them a tour around the Web — all the fun family stuff they’re missing out on. First, you drive. This is especially important for the reluctant grandparent. Do this before you let them know you intend to help them get online. Let them get hooked first.

2. Set up one website at a time for them, and let them know what you are doing (in simple terms). See the Recommended websites below.

3. For each website, put them in the driver’s seat. Let them try things one click at a time. Go slow. Be patient. Go through it twice: first for comprehension, second to create written step-by-step instructions. If needed, go through it a third time to help build their confidence.

You can help enrich a grandparent’s life. Now go do it!

Enjoy! – Grandpa Shayne

Action Items

• Help them choose a computer. I recommend an Apple Macintosh laptop because it is so easy to use and comes with cool, free software.
• Set up a free gmail account.
• Collect a list of family websites and blogs.
• Create accounts on Facebook or other sites where the family posts stuff.
• Create easy-to-remember login names and passwords, and write them down.
• Bookmark all websites. Show them how to access these bookmarks.
• Set them up a free blog or their own on WordPress.com or Blogger.com. (optional)
• If they have a digital camera, show them how to post photos online.

Recommended websites

• Gmail.com
• Facebook.com
• MyFamily.com
• StoryOfMyLife.com
• ScrapBlog.com

More resources

• Our other blog posts about connecting with grandchildren
• Another post “How to help grandparents get online“
• Many senior centers, libraries, colleges, etc. offer classes in basic internet and computer use.

If you know someone who is not online, please print and mail this to them.

Do you have more ideas for helping more grandparents get online? We welcome your comments.

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And for you readers who are privileged to have your grandparents still here, welcome to our blog. We hope you will find inspiration and ideas to show your grandparents just how much you cherish them; how much they mean to you. We encourage you to help your grandparents learn about technology and the Internet so they will feel comfortable and excited to use these tools to communicate and connect with their family. See our other posts, including “How to help grandparents get online“.

About National Grandparents Day…

Grandparents Day is a United States secular holiday, celebrated on the first Sunday after Labor Day. Marian H. McQuade is recognized as the founder Grandparents Day, and the first national Grandparent’s Day was celebrated in 1978. See Wikipedia and Grandparents-Day.com.

A fun cartoon a friend drew for me…

Thanks Marvin!

Some favorite grandparent quotes…

It is as grandmothers that our mothers come into the fullness of their grace. ~Christopher Morley

Grandchildren are God’s way of compensating us for growing old. ~Mary H. Waldrip

Grandchildren: the only people who can get more out of you than the IRS. ~Gene Perret

Some of our favorite books for Grandparents

Free certificates to print for your special Grandma or Grandpa

We hope you’ve enjoyed this Grandparents Day tribute to grandparents. As always, we welcome your comments. How do you plan to celebrate Grandparents Day?

- Grandpa Shayne

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Photo by Paul W

Up until about a century ago, when people left their country to settle in a new land, they would likely never see their families, parents, or grandparents again. The difficulty of distances were too great. Letters would often take months to arrive. Traveling home would have taken days or months, and was usually to too costly.

Today, with the blessings of modern technology, grandparents can keep in touch with their grandchildren easily.

Telephones, internet, mobile phones, smart phones, instant messaging, video phones, smart phones, video chats, VoIP, email, text-messaging, personal and family blogs and websites, photo sharing sites, other resourceful websites. We can fly across the country in the space of a few hours, and usually for less than the cost of driving.

We have technology, finally, that for the first time in human history allows people to really maintain rich connections with much larger numbers of people.  ~Pierre Omidyar

So, at the beginning of this new year, we wish to express gratitude for the blessing grandparents have of staying connected with family though technology. May you love and enjoy your grandchildren.

We want to wish our readers a healthy, prosperous new year. We are grateful for the opportunity we have of associating with you.

- Shayne and Tanda Packer

Please take a moment to email a link to this page to a friend, or use this bookmark button:

This book was the inspiration for the many angel statues around the country which are places to remember a child who has died. Mr. Evans founded The Christmas Box House International, an organization devoted to building shelters and providing services for abused and neglected children. To date, more than 16,000 children have been housed in Christmas Box House facilities.

The most important story we will ever write in life is our own — not with ink, but with our daily choices. ~Richard Paul Evans

The Christmas Box – Richard Paul Evans shares his story.

“So,” you ask, “What do I need to do to get one of these free books?”

Just two easy things: First, we want you to subscribe to GrandparentsTLC.com, either by email or RSS. Subscribing is free, and lets you know as soon as new posts are published.

Second, we want you to share with us a favorite holiday activity or tradition you have with with your grandchildren. Holidays such as Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or a special New Years Eve party. To qualify, your story needs to be a minimum of 100 words (about 9 lines in the comment field). Write your entry in the comment section of this post.

We only have 35 of these books to give away, so don’t miss out! Do it now while it’s on your mind. Click here -

1. Subscribe to GrandparentsTLC.com RSS feed or by Email.
2. Add your story.

So spread the word, and let the comments commence. Thank you. We look forward to reading your entries.

By the way, If you already own a copy of The Christmas Box, you can gift this to a grandchild or a friend.

- Shayne and Tanda Packer

We will mail a copy of this book to you at no charge. So be sure to enter your correct email address in the email field. We will contact you for your shipping address. This free book offer is good only while the supply lasts. Entries will be accepted until midnight January 5th, 2009.

[Update: Please feel free to add your story, even though this giveaway has ended. No more books will be given out. Each of the people who commented before the deadline will receive their book.]

Christmastime is a delightful season! Especially when you share it with your loved ones. Grandchildren love to receive thoughtful gifts from grandparents. But more importantly, grandkids love to feel that special kind of TLC that only Grandma or Grandpa can give. Whether it’s through a personal visit, a package of homemade goodies, or via some form of modern technology — connecting grand-to-grand is a special gift grandkids look forward to with an anticipation to outshine the jolly ol’ elf in the red suit himself. There’s lots of fantastic resources on the web where Grandparents can get ideas for projects, crafts, stories, gifts, etc. Grammy Tanda and I share with you here, our favorite Christmas webpages for grandparents. Some of these links are from our very own subscribers — other grandparents who have websites or blogs — with helpful ideas and tips for that loving connection with your grandchildren. 

Uncles and aunts and cousins, are all very well, and fathers and mothers are not to be despised; but a grandmother at holiday time is worth them all. ~Fanny Fern

We know it can be frustrating at times to find what you’re looking for on the internet, so we hope these links will make it easier for you. Enjoy browsing our favorite Christmas web pages.

- Grandpa Shayne

(Tip: right-click or command-click the links to open them in a new tab so that you can refer back to this article.)

• Make a gingerbread house with your grandchildren
• Free Christmas gifts you can make for your grandchildren
• Nana’s Corner - Santa’s Favorite Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Nana Finds - Homemade Christmas treats and other ideas
• Insightful Nana - Free Christmas Printables
• Grandmother Wren’s Christmas Pages
• Advent Ideas to Share with Grandkids Near and Far
• Songs about Santa
• Free Christmas Activities, Puzzles and Crafts for Kids
• Create Christmas Photo Greeting Cards on your computer to mail to your Grandchildren
• A Review of the Childrens Book “Christmas Tree In The White House” with suggestions of other books by author, Gary Hines
• A story about a family who cannot even afford Christmas dinner, much less gifts under the tree
• Inspirational Poetry of Connie Arnold for the holiday season
• A short talk about Christmas traditions by Grandma Joy
• Online Shopping For Finding The Best Christmas Deals
• 13 Days of Christmas Giveaways
• The Ten Best Christmas Songs For the Kid in You
• Crafty: Shrinky Dink Your Christmas Tree
• Santa Claus Can Call Them For You

Let us know if you have a favorite Christmas webpage. Your comments are appreciated.

Why not give us a gift by bookmarking or emailing this to a friend!

The first thing I think of about Thanksgiving is families getting together, sharing food, fun, and laughter. Food often reminds us of our favorite memories of Thanksgivings past. Relationships are being built while taking time to share favorite memories. Small activities give us opportunities to connect with our grandchildren in comfortable ways — while we’re setting tables, eating, cleaning up.

Take time to share memories with your grandkids of Thanksgiving when their parents were little, or when your were little. How it’s the same, how it’s different. Tell them what your parents and grandparents were like so they feel a connection with their heritage. Reminisce what their parents were like as children, and things you remember about your grandchildren as babies. Share family stories. Everybody has favorite family stories that get past around, embarrassing moments, silly times. Often, repeating those stories over meal times becomes a family tradition and builds fond memories.

Many families have traditional activities they share together — a family football game, a walk in the crisp fall air. One of the things my family did when I was a child was watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade.

One Thanksgiving tradition I started when our family was young is to set 3 kernels of corn by the side of each place. Each of person takes a turn telling 3 blessings they are grateful for. This idea represents the friendship the Native Americans extended to the Pilgrims in teaching them how to survive in this new land of America. They taught the English colonists how to grow corn and thus helped them survive their first year in Plimoth Plantation in New England. This led to the first Thanksgiving feast.

So, enjoy your family and your traditions. If you can’t all be together, use the blessing of modern technology to connect with your family this Thanksgiving. It’s all about making memories!

A happy family is but an earlier heaven. ~John Bowring

Grandpa Shayne and I have so much to be thankful for. We will be enjoying Thanksgiving with 3 of our married children and 5 of our grandchildren. Even though it will take us all day to get there, it will be well worth the trip. ♩♬♪ Over the river and through the woods to our grandchildren’s house we go. ♪♫♩

We express our gratitude for you, our dear readers and friends. We wish you a delightful Thanksgiving holiday with your family and loved ones.

- Grammy Tanda

Now, enjoy these links to our favorite Thanksgiving web pages. (Hint: right-click or command-click the links to open them in a new tab so that you can refer back to this article.)

• Plimoth Plantation for Kids - coloring pictures, stories, recipes…
• Disney Family.com – crafts, recipes, printables, decorations, games…
• Disney Famliy.com – how-to videos
• SandwichINK.com - Thanksgiving fun making handprint wreaths, trees…
• SandwichINK.com – more Thanksgiving ideas
• GrandmaIdeas - Fun Thanksgiving games to play with your grandchildren
• GrandmaIdeas – Make cute Thanksgiving holiday decorations (edible)
• GrandmaIdeas – More activities to do with grandchildren on Thanksgiving
• Joan Adams – Fun Thanksgiving Songs
• BeTheWeightYouWant - make pumpkin bowls and dip, eat with ginger snaps
• Peggy George – Thanksgiving Scrapblog and inspirational online movie link
• The story of how a Thanksgiving Prayer became a Family Tradition
• Nana – Gratitude, The Power In Being Thankful For Life!
• Thanksgiving Day photo greeting cards create memories for grandchildren
• Teddy Bears should be Given to All Children

We welcome your comments. Tell us about the Thanksgiving traditions your family share.

Please help us reach more readers by bookmarking or emailing this to a friend!

Using the Internet to stay close to family and friends at home and abroad

How do you raise your children and grandchildren to enjoy the full benefits of the extended family, if grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends are scattered around the world. This is a problem I have lived with first hand!

When I was a young teenager in the 1950s

My family emigrated from the UK to the USA, settling down in Florida. We left almost my entire family back in the UK, My uncle’s family had crossed over before us and had settled in Winnipeg. My parents stayed in touch with the rest of the family through the occasional “Blue Flyer” — a flimsy, hard to read, light weight aerogramme. While it was relatively expensive, it was far quicker than surface mail which could take up to six or eight weeks. Phone calls were very rare and only used for family emergencies. No wonder we had no real ties with the larger family remaining at home. Sadly some would pass away before we returned to see them.

Adding to the problems

Returning to the UK in the 1970s, I further complicated my communications difficulties by bringing my American wife and children to live in England. Now I was closer to my English relatives, but my brother and his family still remained in Florida and all my wife’s family lived in the US Midwest.

So many more letters and a few more phone calls were needed. Transatlantic phone calls still cost a few pounds to make so they were only used for special occasions. Over the next few years we made friends with many locally based US Air Force families, all of whom returned to the US to live and retire, further increasing our web of international friends and family.

Technology to the rescue

Just when we were beginning to feel the burden of high postage costs, especially around Christmas, transatlantic phone calls became more competitive dropping to ten pence (16 cents) per minute. Our letter writing just about stopped, but the greeting cards continued to flow and we still limited our phone calls to a small number of family and friends and tried to keep them to a short duration. This was still not the way to stay in touch although it seemed the solution. In the mid 1990s, we started using email but found that few of our friends in the USA were hooked up to the Internet and even fewer in the UK. Most of those emails went to family or friends via their work email addresses until the wider spread acceptance of the Internet in the early 2000s.

Now it works!

Just about everyone we know now has personal email so it is very easy to stay in touch worldwide. We have even used ship board web connections via satellite to read and send messages via our own web email service — quite costly however! As most of our contacts have moved to broadband (ADSL), exchanging photos is now quick and easy. One downside however, is the proliferation of email jokes with huge attachments (and absolutely no personal news). This hardly constitutes keeping in touch in my books but at least we know the senders are still alive!

Free International phone calls

We now use Skype, one of several Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) services, with excellent results. (I have also used MS Messenger but I find Skype the best for me.) This enables us to talk to any other Skype user (almost) anywhere in the world through our PC mic/speakers, free of charge.

Skype also offers a “Skype Out” service that allows you to make cheap international calls with Skypeto telephones and mobile phones. We use it on a pay-as-you-go top-up basis. This service allows me to talk to most overseas land-line phones for about 1.5 pence per minute (about 2.1 cents) — about 25% of current international phone rates. Even better, with an inexpensive webcam, we can now “video conference” our family, provided they too have a webcam connected via Skype. While voice multi connections are possible via Skype, I do not believe it is yet possible to have a virtual video family reunion on the Skype service, although I am sure they are working on it! Skype now offers “Skype” phones which can provide an enhanced home phone that combines all the functions of land line phones, mobile/cellular phones and web phones for a fraction of traditional day to day phone costs. My friend and technical advisor is currently “checking” this out so watch his blog on www.richardfarrar.com.

Sharing Family Photos

We have tried using Flickr to share our photos around our family via the web but the uploading times are slow and not that easy. We have also found that many of our friends and family found the viewing service hard to use so we have opted to use our own web site. Currently I load the photos quickly and easily via FTP and my audience can access them at their leisure. The hard part for me, is cataloguing and labeling each photo, a process involving ASP code writing and therefore not too user friendly. I will move my photo library to our blog site soon, automating the process and making maintenance and access much easier.

Family Blog Sites

On the subject of blog sites, that seems to be the way ahead with the “family communication network”. What has started out as a hobby hopefully will get more of my friends and family commenting and contributing content (see www.thegrandparentsblog.com).

Publishing Deadlines

Creating content can be fun but is time consuming, however it is a great way to keep in touch. We use WordPress software and that makes blog site management easy. It also brings plug-in benefits — extra little tools to manage the site and to improve the communication process and content value.

Twittering

One such plug-in displays a link to twitter — an internet communication tool that takes short messages and posts them automatically to your subscribers. I use twitter, but have only a small following — my fault, because I am not yet used to adding news items and so far not many in my family/friends network have signed up.

In Summary

Thus far, we have been able to find old friends we thought we had lost touch with forever. We can stay in daily contact with brothers and sisters and other family members, between our sadly, far too infrequent visits to each other. It is getting better every day as web technology improves and our grandchildren now have a much greater appreciation for our global family.

Sadly too late for me, I saw my grandparents only twice in their last twenty years because of the transatlantic divide! I am so grateful that our own grandchildren will not have the same regrets.

In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future. ~Alex Haley

Find me at

• The Grandparents Blog
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Email

- Grandpa Davison

[Tell us how you use the Internet to stay close to your family. We enjoy reading your comments.]

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