reasons why i love my great grandma tick tock

grandma tick tock (officially mcclintock, but meghan couldn’t pronounce that when she was younger…and tick tock just fits) is 90 years old. she still works part time, dresses up for halloween (one year, she dressed up as cleopatra and she loved her costume so much she wore it everywhere for weeks before halloween. my aunt had to take the costume away because people kept getting surprise visits from an 80-something year old cleopatra wanting to borrow a stick of butter or whatever.) she’s never missed sending a birthday card and she makes us watergate cookies every year for christmas. i’m not really sure why she calls them that, but i’m pretty sure they’re made out of pistachio pudding. oh and she’s obsessed with dr. phil.

recently grandma’s health started failing, so she decided to pretty much rip up her will and to instead foot the bill for her entire family to go on a disney cruise with her to celebrate her life. how amazing is that? so we spent a week in the carribean with 52 of our relatives – from uncles and aunts to great and second (maybe even third??) cousins. the cruise itself was a blast (i’ll get to that in a second), but the thing that stuck with all of us the most was the realization that we belong to such an amazing legacy. there were people there that i haven’t seen in years, but that didn’t matter. we were all the same family and everyone was treated as such. in the spirit of grandma, who insists on talking to everyone she passes (the entire cruise staff knew her and even other families wanted pictures taken with grandma tick tock), we opened our arms and our hearts to get to know each other and to get to know grandma even better. by the end of the week, kids in the fifth generation were crying because they had to say goodbye to people in the third generation. second cousins hated to leave great uncles. what a great connection. i belong to such a cool legacy. thanks grandma tick tock for helping us all realize what’s really important in life!! and thanks for making me realize that i’m going to have to start saving for my wedding – i always wanted a small one, but now there’s no way i wouldn’t invite all 52 of those people!! love you grams!!

and now…

reasons why the disney cruise rocks

1. because you get to dress up like pirates

2. because you could get proposed to by a member of the cruise staff

3. because your waiter constantly plays practical jokes on you during your formal dinner

4. because where else do they light the christmas tree using pixie dust?

5. because they sell artificial hairpieces with little mickeys in them

6. two words – jack sparrow

7. one word – tarzan (no pic sadly. his abs broke the camera)

8. because all these people are there!