Happy Memorial Day!

On this Memorial Day, I remember my grandpa and grandma. As I've already written a post recently about my grandma, Sigrid, I wanted to write this one about my grandpa: Albert "Jinx" Durfey.


A few things that I remember about him are his constant sense of humor and mischievousness... (He once nearly got into a fight when he accidentally pelted a stranger at a restaurant in Wisconsin with the aluminum ball he'd made from his baked potato wrapper. He was trying to throw it at a family member.) How he always had a bag of jelly beans or gumdrops in the car, for driving snacks, how he played a mean game of cribbage, and his alpaca sweaters. 


Every morning, he'd get up and get dressed, and he'd typically wear some plaid pants, a button-downed shirt (short sleeves in summer) and an alpaca sweater. As a kid, I didn't even know what an alpaca was, until my grandpa told me that it was an animal, like a llama, which people would shear to get a kind of wool, and then they'd spin it into yarn to make sweaters and stuff. 


I met some this weekend and did this short video to show you how adorable they are. We met some at the Lebanon Wine Festival. All the footage was taken by Keith, since I was in the pen with the cuties, petting them and swooning.

Alpacas from Shari Durfey on Vimeo.

The sound they make melts my heart! And you can't really tell, but their eyelashes are about 2" long... the white one has white lashes, the black one has black lashes, and the brown one has brown lashes. Ha ha... they are the cutest! And yes, they are very soft.


My grandparents would have loved the wine festival, the alpacas, the food, the candy... they loved walking around with lots of people, and taking photos. I miss walking around with them. There's one thing that grandparents do that no one else can: make you feel like the center of the universe, even when you're old enough to know better. I miss you and love you, Grandma & Grandpa!  You're in my thoughts and my heart, always.