Dylan just barely missed meeting his three Great Grandmas on Dan's side of the family. Great Grandma Pearl Glerup passed away on June 22nd of this year, 2009. On her last visit down to California on September 18, 2008, Dan and I decided to announce to the Burnett family that we were expecting a baby. As we were posing for a family picture, Dan announced, "Hey, everyone, did I tell you that Marci's going to have a baby?" We tried to take video of the moment, but alas, as we were new to using the video camera, we accidentally recorded over it. I think Dan's brother Dave has a digital picture somewhere, though.
Here is a picture of Grandma Pearl and Dan at our wedding in 2002.
Grandma Pearl was a firecracker and had the typical Burnett sense of humor. After the announcement, Dan and I spoke with her again, to make sure she had heard the announcement. Dan asked her if she had heard what he said. She said, "Well, sure I heard! Another squalling brat, eh?" Dan was quick to respond, "Well, it may not be your best great grandkid..." Grandma Pearl didn't miss a beat. She said, "Well, it surely can't be, because it's gonna be yours!" Now, of this moment, we have video, so we can prove that it was all said in good humor. Grandma Pearl was thrilled that we were going to have a baby and honored that we chose her visit to announce our news.
On November 1, 2008, Grandma Maria passed away. She was an interesting woman, too. I found this picture of her from her obituary online. She was a very talented crafter and knitter, and she is responsible for various knit doilies and potholders and other knitted and beaded crafts that we have around our house. She had saved a baby blanket and a burp cloth for our baby, but she passed away a month before we found out the gender of the baby. Dan's mom brought them to us. It is nice to know that she was excited for us to start our family and we will always imagine her planning which crafts to start for the baby as soon as she found out what the gender was. 
In private, I nicknamed her "Worm Grandma." When I first met her, we were visiting her house. She was out in front of her house with a car battery with two wire probes attached to the poles. She put it down and ran into her house to wash up and change her shirt before she came out to meet us. We went inside and talked with her for a while and when we came out again, we continued talking. She hadn't brought up the subject of the car battery, so we didn't, either. Before we left, though, she saw the battery on the ground and told us that she had better remember to bring it inside. Then she asked, "Do you know what I use this for?" Of course, we really wanted to know, but we nonchalantly nodded. She explained to us that she used to do a lot of fishing. We continued to politely nod, even though we hadn't made the connection. She said she still collected and sold worms to use for bait. She explained that she would put the probes into the ground a certain distance apart, and the worms would jump out of the ground, still wriggling and alive. She would catch them before they were able to dig back into the ground. As she was miming her worm collection, she rolled up her sleeves and we saw that she had some decorative tattoos. We never got the story behind those. But we will always remember her as a very interesting, intelligent and funny woman.
Grandma Bevie passed away on December 3, 2007, at the age of 94. To differenciate this grandma for me from the other two, Dan called her "Cookies Grandma," because she looked like a woman straight off of a package of homemade cookies. She was soft spoken and she always looked after everyone. Dan's mom said she especially loved taking care of children.
I was looking her up on the Internet, and I found a news article about her. I remember Dan's dad telling me this story. When she was 81, she was still active and bowling. She bowled a 234, which is excellent by anyone's standards, but particularly for an 81 year old. They wrote up an article about her in the newspaper, and they couldn't really get a good quote out of her, because she thought it was silly to talk herself up like that. I think it's a good representation of how active and yet how sweet and humble she was.
I found this picture of Grandma Bevie when she met Alyssa as a baby in 2004. We put Alyssa's hat on Grandma, and put Alyssa in her lap.
I just wanted Dylan to know what fantastic people and interesting characters his great grandmas all were. It's very sad that they couldn't be here to meet him in person, but we know they will be watching over him all of his life.
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