I believe it's been well documented here that Bubby loves trucks. Garbage trucks, in particular. So when Nonnie Kelly (my mom, his great-grandma) came to visit him with a garbage truck gift — a garbage truck that makes noise and lights up, no less — Bubby was clearly in heaven.

He also was in heaven when he got to actually touch, not just see, the trucks PawDad had shown him during past Skype sessions.

Same goes for when he gave PawDad the monster truck he picked out himself for PawDad's birthday. The monster truck he just had to give PawDad early, before the party, because he was so excited for PawDad to play with it.

Glimpses of heaven also appeared while driving a Bubby-sized monster truck at Chuck E Cheese ...

... filling a dump truck in the back yard ...

... and building a "tower truck" all by himself for driving around Gramma's dining room.

Trucks, trucks, trucks. While Bubby was here, we played trucks, talked trucks, read about trucks, and named trucks every single time we saw one on the road, in a book, or on television. There were garbage trucks, of course, plus cement trucks, ice cream trucks, dump trucks, produce trucks, and more. Each time, we recited not only the type of truck, but what each one hauls, too.

Wednesday morning, Bubby had been gone not yet one full day when I had to take Mickey to the vet. All the truck talk was still on the brain, so I had to stop myself several times from saying to Mickey — who gives not one whit about trucks — "Look at that big one!" and "Hey, there's a yellow dump truck," and "Yay! There's a brown one!"

The brown ones were especially exciting for me to see, even without Bubby by my side, because although Bubby's favorite is garbage trucks, my favorite is the brown ones, the UPS trucks. For every single time I see one now, I will always and forever recall Bubby's enthusiasm when two UPS trucks passed by the window of a diner we ate at one evening during his visit.

"Brown ones! There's two brown ones!" he shouted as the UPS trucks slowed to a stop at the traffic light visible from our table.

"And what do the brown ones bring?" Megan asked him.

With no hesitation whatsoever, Bubby excitedly shouted, "Presents!"

Makes the shipping expenses of a long-distance grandma well worth it, I say.

Today's question:

Do you now or have you in the past owned a truck? What kind and how much did you love it?