Family Reunions

I remember growing up in rural Illinois.  Each summer would have an exciting event that we all looked forward to:  our Family Reunion!!  Someone would reserve the place in the Forest Preserve and tables would be set up and the whole family would gather, with so much food it made you dizzy looking at it all!  I can still see my Grandmother setting up the table with a table cloth and there would be coolers filled with soda pop and drinks and ice!  The barbecue grills would be going and food cooking on them.  Games were planned and we all competed especially in the family softball tournament!  One of the neatest things was that us "kids" got to see all of our cousins that we hadn't seen in so long!  Aunts and Uncles in lawn chairs, music playing from radios and laughter rising in the air! What fun we had!
Now most of those family members from back then have passed on and with them, somehow the tradition of the Family Reunion passed on also.  Many reasons were given: family moved on to other states, key persons that had always planned it were passed on;  no one could get off work or travel that far, etc.  It's a shame because that was really the only time that all of us got to really spend some fun time together and catch up on what had been transpiring with each of us.

Now my Nephew and his wife have decided that enough time has gone by without all of us seeing each other and they have planned our first Family Reunion in probably 20 or more years. Many of our family are traveling today and a few have arrived early to spend some time with their children doing some sight-seeing before tomorrow.  Most of the ones attending are the younger generation: cousins!  Some of us older family will be there also, but it's so nice to see the younger families desiring to pick up this old tradition again!

Tomorrow will be a blessed day!  Praying for everyone to have a good time and safe travels and that this tradition will grow even bigger with each passing year!

A salute to old traditions!

We Will Remember in November

Praying that God will have mercy on our nation, forgive our sins, and bless us once again!

Nostalgic

 

Last week, my husband and I went away to a cabin in Townsend, TN to celebrate our 42nd anniversary!!  We were isolated from the world in a magical world of woods and silence!  When we awoke on that first morning after arriving the night before, we were surprised to see a Winter Wonderland all around us!  I opened the door to take some pictures and was awed by the silence and the sound (yes, it does make a sound) of falling snow on the trees and shrubs. It was beautiful!!

Trying to decide what we really wanted to "DO" on our anniversary,  we realized something:  when you get to our ages and have been married for as long as we have been, it's hard to find something different or exciting to do!  So we decided to just go into Pigeon Forge and see where we wanted to eat our anniversary dinner at and we'd decide what to do once we got there.  Well, neither of us could find anything that looked like "fun" until we saw a Books-a-Million store!!  Our eyes lit up and we realized that nothing could be better for us or more fun than going to the book store!!  We have always loved books!  We pulled into the lot and went through the doors and although I told myself I was only going to look and really didn't expect to find anything that I wanted to read, (as I have several books at home still that are unread!), within the first five minutes I found not one but FOUR books I just had to have!!   We spent about an hour or so in there browsing and when we finished, we decided to go to Calhoun's to have our anniversary dinner!  The food was excellent and we noticed that right next door was my favorite candy store! I discovered this candy store in Gatlinburg several years ago and now they have one in Pigeon Forge!  It's named "Kilwin's" and they have the absolute BEST pecan-caramel apples in the world!  I bought two and we headed back home.  We were supposed to get more snow so we wanted to get home and across the mountain road we took before it got dark.

What a wonderful day we had!

Today, I have been reading one of the books I purchased and it's called "Making Rounds With Oscar" by David Dosa, M.D.  It's an excellent book, although I must say that it has made me feel a little sad reading it.  It has brought up many memories of when my Dad was dying from Alzheimer's Disease.  The book is about a doctor that makes rounds in a nursing facility and the patients he serves and a cat named Oscar that senses when a patient is about to die.  It's really very interesting, but if you have had a loved one die with Alzheimer's, it may make you feel sad as you revisit those days in your mind.

I finished another book that I bought that day titled "One Good Dog" by Susan Wilson.  I read it in a couple days it was so good!! I highly recommend it although as a fair warning, it does have a few swear words in it. Wonderful story otherwise!

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep... "