Category Archives: Dean Family

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Fun in the Fort

Jared , Win Harriet and I hopped in out air conditioned, blue streak, minivan and sped down to Fort Wayne for 24 hours for a party that my Mom threw.  I grew up in a city with no relatives.  My mom and 3 other moms got together on a regular basis to pray for their kids.  Those families became my Fort Wayne family.  Long time friends and non-blood cousins are the Smits, Stauffer and Zabel family.

Here I am at the party with Betsy.  Betsy and her husband John are fabulous photographers in Fort Wayne.  Our journey into photography is very similar.  We had a blast talking geeky photog stuff.  Thanks for letting me get my grubby hands on your 5D Bets!

Tan and Fit

My skinny tan parents have returned from their winter home in Arizona.  This was the first year that they wintered in AZ and I don’t think that it will be their last.  They are tan fit and full of stories of the fun that they had.  Missing their grandkids, they came up for a short weekend.

We walked down to the Tulip Time parade.  Pictures courtsey of my parents

Harriet enjoyed playing with my dad.

Win couldn’t take his eyes off the parade.

My sister and her husband drove over from GR.  Here we are fooling around with some squirrel oven rack openers that we made on 7th grade shop class.  My mom is cleaning house and we inherited these.

Here I am instructing my mom in the basics of using my camera.

She did a pretty good job!

We all went out to our favorite Chineese buffet.  Win ate so many fresh strawberries that his stomach hurt.  He’s a little like his mom.

I filled up for $3.39 a gallon…but gas is still cheap to me.

Have you ever gotten together with friends and laughed about the days when gas was under a dollar. I was in high school then. It was the winter of 1996 when I got my driver’s license. To enable us to remain kids and not have the burden or auto ownership my parents, thankfully, provided my brother, sister and me with a car to share. We called it the “kid car.” More correctly I should say them. The “kid car” was actually a string of very old vehicles that spent the final months of their lives in our family. The parade went something like this.

1981 Caprice Classic Wagon

1972 Saab

This one was our favorite. The ignition had broken so my dad rigged the car to start by pressing a button. C’mon that’s cool!

1985 Honda Accord

BORING!

1976 Nova

Probably the most amazing of the bunch. This vehicle had no working speedometer. I would just guess at my speed. About 5% of the times that I made a left hand turn the passenger door would come unlatched and go flying open. The passenger door on a 1976 2-door Nova is no small object. Passengers were always required to buckle up.

1979 Toronado

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This car was the one that I drove the most. I was pretty spectacular. When I went to college some random strangers stopped my our house and offered to buy it. It sold for less that I had paid for my roller blades.

The “Toro” was ’70s-gold and decked out. It had powerseats, leather, a little voice that told you when your 2-ton door was ajar, and to top it off, a V8 engine. Other features included rhythmic forceful shaking when stopped at a stoplight, a cloud of blue smoke as a declaration of superiority for whomever was behind me, and an amazing 6 miles per gallon. Here’s an image that I found online of the same year and color. If the phrase “pimp daddy” comes to mind then you’ve got the picture.

1981 Cadillac (DeVille I think)

123 inch wheel base. ‘nuf said.

When I married Jared in 1999 he had a 1995 Dodge Stratus. When I got married, in college, I didn’t even own a car. The Straus is still with us as our main vehicle. Yup, I still drive the first car that I ever owned. 2 years into our marriage we decided that a second vehicle was in order. Sticking with my family tradition of old second vehicles Jared and I purchased a 1986 Mazda pickup with awesome racing striped. This car looks like it should be wearing tight stonewash jeans, a hypercolor t-shirt while smoking a cigarette.

Back to gas prices. Our Stratus gets about 23 miles per gallon. At $3.49 a gallon driving is still cheaper than it was for me in 1996 when I paid just less than a dollar to drive 6 miles in that 1979 V8 Toronado.

Jed, Johanna, are my facts right?

Grandma and Grandgirl

We spent the last few days hanging out with Grandma and Bahh (Rudy) Dean in Fort Wayne, celebrating an early Christmas with the Dean Clan (minus Jed and Sara and kids). We had lots of fun hanging out, playing with the kids, catching a racoon, and doing other Dean holiday events.Here are a couple super-cute shots of Grandma and Hattie.

Fort Wayne

We are in Fort Wayne celebrating Christmas with my parents. I found this picture of me with my parents and my older brother, Jed. This picture was taken in the fall of ‘79 when Jed and I were almost exactly the same ages as Win and Harriet are now. I was a born a burnette and I turned red. We’ll see what happens to Harriet’s hair.

BAA! is Win’s name for Grandpa Dean