Happy Birthday Nana!!!

Today was my Nana's birthday. Audrie May McCashland Kennington, she is my dad's mom. I have so many memories of Nana that it is hard to pick just a few. She died when I was in the 7th grade so most of my memories are from my childhood. I really wish that I would have know her as an adult, but am grateful for her influence in my life even today. We spent many a night sleeping over at their house on the orange fold out couch. She was always a great hostess and took great care of us. She often took us shopping after a slumber party and the most often bought items were shoes and underwear, super exciting! Nana was a woman of great faith, she had a testimony that was rock solid!!! I learned a lot from her dedication to the gospel and her teaching us in her little subtle ways. Singing songs on car rides or as we played in the yard. Many of the hymns bring tears to my eyes when I sing them because they hold memories of time spent with Nana. My first memories and exposure to Relief Society were in her ward, she asked us to sing for a lesson and I recall the love and sisterhood that we felt there. I knew that that is somewhere that I belonged, that has only increased as the years have past.

Snowbird every year as a family in the summer over my birthday are also great memories. She and Poppy sacrificed so that we could be there and have a good time. She could often be found yelling over the balcony to Poppy at the pool that we needed to come in cause your lips were blue! My sister Mandy and I went with Nana and Poppy one summer to visit our cousins in New Mexico. We drove down there and it was a lot of fun! We spent time in hotels and ate yummy food! She let us get Ohs cereal which our mother never let us do! And we really had a good time talking, playing, and building memories!

Nana was a spit fire. She was very strong willed and told you like it was, at times this was a bit scary but she was also a very loving woman. She loved us so much and did many things for us, I never questioned her love for me. You never argued with Nana cause she was ALWAYS right!!! I recall one time that I tried to trick her into thinking that I had eaten my cooked carrots, which I HATED, and she discovered that I was lying and made me eat them cold...even worse!!! To this day I can't eat them without thinking of her! Sunday dinners were frequent at their home and it was always very yummy! She was a great cook, although she used a lot of fat!! But I learned to love peaches/pears with cottage cheese at her dinner table! She made Poppy vacuum the back porch and this was one of the funniest things that I had ever seen. They had carpet on the back porch and she kept it super clean, or I guess she made Poppy do so!!

In their retirement years she and Poppy worked in the temple. They were very dedicated to this calling and often got up early to make it to the temple by 6am!! I could never do that!! She taught my dad a lot and I am thankful for that for he has in turn taught me. She had hardships in her life trying to have children and she never complained that I heard about loosing children or anything associated with that. I look up to her for that and am thankful for her example of faith. I really wish that I could have shared more years with her, I know that she would be proud of the things that I have done in my life. But I know that her time on earth was what it needed to be and am thankful that she lives on in her posterity. After all her great-granddaughter Audrie is named after her and is just as much a spite fire as she was!!!

Happy Birthday Nana!! May you be proud of your posterity!!!