Found: 2 Lost cousins!

Today we spent most of the day in Quitman, Ga. Gary found his cousin on facebook. He hasn't seen them in about 50 Years. (I know you didn't think he was that old, but he is). Wylene and Mildred are sisters and we had a good time getting to know them and hearing all the news from years ago. Wylene took us around the town and we saw where Gary lived and went to school as a little boy and where his grand-parents were buried. It was a nice day.

This was Gary's grand-father.

And his grand-mother who he never new.

This used to be his elementary school. Not sure what they are using it for now, but it is a beautiful building.

This was the house he lived in about 55 years ago. Had to take the picture from the car window across the street as the owners were sitting on the porch and watching us. Didn't want to upset them.

Quitman is your normal small southern town. Lots of pretty old oak trees and lots of big old southern homes with big porches. We were lucky and missed the rain. It looked like it would rain while we were there, but then it got sunny and hot. However, we missed the rain, but it didn't miss us here. Another 1 1/2 inches. We are now at 20+ in the last week and a half. Showers of Blessings have turned into a lot of puddles. One of our neighbors is riding on his air boat in their pasture. That is how wet it is. Oh well, this too shall pass. Unfortunately, the garden probably won't make it now. But life is still good.

Taco's for dinner!

We had taco's for dinner tonight. Usually Tanek just eat's the meat and cheese. Tonight he tried the whole taco. Got to teach him young. If you are a member of this family it helps to love taco's.

Checking it out.
Not bad!

Umm, Pretty good actually.

Rain Rain and still MORE Rain!

Ever since late last Sunday night we have had non-stop rain. I can't even remember for sure how much we have got in just a week but today we got another 3 inches. Today during one of our brief moments of sunshine I went out to check on papa's garden. It was looking good and no puddles standing and nothing damaged. But that was before the new 3 inches. I am glad that we are in a sandy dry area. It is good when we get this much rain, not so good in a drought. It is hard to believe so much rain can come down and not stop. Below are some pictures of the garden.

This is squash

And my personal favorite.....Watermelons

Lots and lots of peas

Tomatoes. 24 plants to be exact.

Corn. We ate some today and it is pretty good. Needs to get a little more mature I think.

Hopefully the garden will survive. Lots of gardens are under water and ruined. This is usually our dry month but something changed this year. I prefer it over drought which causes you to lose your garden anyway and always the risk of fire. SO, even though we certainly have had enough rain to last us for at least a couple days I prefer this over the fires we had a few years ago.

We share 3 beautiful Grand-daughters

Jackie (Heather's mom) and I share 3 beautiful grand-daughters. Jackie has just returned from a week up in Maryland with these girls and brought back a disk of photo's from a photo shoot Heather took. I picked up the disk today and couldn't wait to get them on my computor to share.
Below is my First grand-daughter Kirsten. She is 13 and a very beautiful young lady. We are so proud of her.

Here is Kirsten and Emily who is 3. Emily keeps everyone entertained and is very precious.

Here are all 3 girls. Sweet Hannah is in the middle. She is 9 and shares my love of bird watching and flowers etc. She was a big help to papa last year planting the garden. When we all had come in because it was so hot, (he planted his 2nd crop of peas in July) she was still out there with her papa planting peas. And they grew very well. There were enough for us to have some and for the deer to have quite a few too. She is a very special girl.

Here is Jackie with our 3 girls.

Our Hannah. Doesn't she have beautiful eyes?

Another pair of beautiful eyes

And all you can say about this little one is she is just precious. She is a hoot. There is NO telling what she might come up with next.. She is all girl and likes to dress up. She is a sweetheart.

I love this picture. I love the refections in the water. Heather is a professional photographer and you can tell that by her photographs.

Thanks Jackie for sharing these photo's. I look forward to my visit up there next month and having some fun time with the girls. I will bring back more photo's.

Papa's remodeled swing!

Yesterday Morgan came over with Meme and Memaw and Garrett to go swimming. She did swim for awhile even though the water was chilly. Afterward her and Tanek swang in the swing Papa built. He has been working on it to perfect it so Tanek would not fall out of it. He likes to swing high and go around and round and it was just a little unsecured. SO he built this one and Morgan and Tanek had lots of fun.

Morgan is flying high and going round and round

Tanek loved swinging with Morgan

This morning Papa worked on the swing some more. He put in a strap that would hold him in and blocked off the top. I think he has it just right now. You can see how much fun Tanek had on the new swing and no chance of falling out.

Disney Day 3

On Wednesday morning we went to Hollywood Studio's. I am not a fan of High School Musical, have never seen it, but my grand-daughters like it so I snapped these pictures of the performance for them.

We went to Disney Playhouse (which of course is Tanek's favorite show). Here he is watching it.

We also took the backstage tour and I snapped some of the pictures that they have used in movies.

This is a replica of the water tower that used to be (or may still be?) at the Disney studio's in Burbank, Calif.

Good Ol Herbie!

Some movie shots

Time out for an ice cream and frozen banana break

I had been wanting one of these ice cream bars since the first time we started coming here. I finally got one and really didn't like it that much. It was dark chocalate and way to chocalatey.

(If that is even a word)

Here is a picture of downtown New York City.

And of course we always go to Radiator Springs to visit with Lightning and Towmator

We had a great 3 days and Tanek has not stopped talking about it since we came home. It really is fun to see the excitement in a 3 year old eyes as he experiences all the magic of Disney World.

Looking forward to our next trip.

MOTHER'S DAY 2009

I have just celebrated my 40th year as a mom. As I reflect each year about being a mom, it is hard to believe that it has been 40 years. I still remember the joy of the miracle of first becoming a mom. Over the years there were lots of good times and of course some not so good times, but I can truthfully say that being a mom was my most favorite title in the whole world. That is until I became "Nana". Now THAT is a great title. It is hard to explain how when you love being "mom" how Nana can even surpass that role. I think I was created to be a Nana. I love every minute of it. It is so neat that your adult children are people that you love to spend time with. Friends. People you would like to hang out with even if they were not related to you.
And then to top that off they bring you wonderful grand-children. Grand-children are in my opinion God's greatest earthly blessing to us. Just as you are getting to the point where you feel "not needed" by your own children Grand-children come and you again have a role to play. Only now you don't have the responsibility of paying for their clothes, food, Dr. bills, lessons, college etc etc. You just have the time to enjoy them and do all the things you didn't have time to do when your own children were growing up. And it is so much fun to see their parents personalities coming out in them in so many ways. Kirsten, my first grand-child made me a Nana. What a joy that 1st grand-child is. But as #2 and then #3 & 4 come along they are just as special. Wow! 4 grand-children. I never thought I would have 4. But it is so wonderful. Each one is so different and so much fun. I hate that my 3 precious grand-daughters live so far away that I don't get to spend a lot of time with them, but they are still so precious to me and I try to keep up with them from a distance. And when I do get to be with them I try to make up for lost time. And it is special getting to stay a few days with them and seeing them morning through night. My sweet grand-son lives close and I get to take care of him a few days a week while his mommy works and that is precious time. Right now that sweet little boy is asleep in his bed in the next room. We are making lots of memories. The latest ones is of him going on the potty. That is big and we celebrate it big. He is so excited as we all are. His big goal was to get trained so he could go to Disney, take gymnastic lessons and get a build it lego bulldozer. Lots of incentives that have worked well. In June I will be spending time with the grand-daughters at their house and I look forward to that. The 2 youngest will have dance recitals and I can't wait to see them in it. I just feel so very blessed that I have been able to enjoy not only my children growing up and becoming friends, then they married and brought us two more friends and our 4 grand-children. Life is good. God is SO good. If you are not yet a grand-parent just wait. You have NO idea what fun is in store for you. To each mother I hope you had a Happy Mother's day. Your role is not always easy, but it is fleeting. Enjoy it. The best is yet to come. When you can like as well as love your grown children you have succeeded as a parent. They will leave for a time to go to college or whatever, but they do come back. Even when they live far away, they come for visits and those visits are special times. I love watching the circle of life. I am now where my parents were just a short time ago. They have both gone on the heaven now and I sure miss them. I want to have enough memories made that when my time comes (hopefully not until I am at least 80) that my grand-children will have loads of memories of their Nana.
Thanks Richard and Stephanie for making me "mom" and for making me "nana". You guys did good. I am blessed and very very thankful.


#1 Grand-daughter Kirsten
#2 Grand-daughter Hannah #3 Grand-daughter Emily

#4 Grand-child Tanek (#1 grand-son)

It doesn't get any better than this. How could you ask for any better unless it would be for more? I don't want to get greedy though. These 4 will do very nicely. Love you sweeties.

Disney Day 2-

Tuesday morning we took the boat from the hotel to downtown Disney. It was a nice day to do so. It was hot and so we spent time in the AC. We had lunch at Wolfgang Puck. The food and service was great. I really do recommend the food program.
We tried to pose Tanek between Mickey & Minnie. There wasn't much room for him.

Tanek shopping for baby Pluto. Last time he got a big Pluto and this time he got the baby Pluto.

He sleeps with them every night.

This was one of the new attractions. We didn't go on it, but we did think about it. Maybe next time.

We went to the Lego store. Here you can make cars and race them. It was a lot of fun. They have unbelievable things made from lego's. You can buy kits and then they have all kinds of things you can buy to add to your kits. Lots of fun.

After lunch we went back to the hotel and let Tanek play in the room for awhile and then took him to the big pool. He had a great time with mommy and meme. Nana took pictures. He is a water baby. He didn't mind one bit getting completely under the water and just kept jumping off and having so much fun. The pool water temp was wonderful. Wish ours was this warm.

Mommy and meme helping Tanek in the water.

Catch me meme!

Tanek is standing in front of the spurting fountain. You can see it to the right of him.

Mommy's turn to catch me.

Late afternoon we headed over to Epcot to see the flower's and the fireworks. The fireworks were absolutely awesome. Even better than the one's at the Magic Kingdom. The flowers and landscaping was beautiful. They had all sorts of characters done in flowers and plants. Just beautiful. It is one of my favorite parks to visit. I didn't think I would like it since it is so eduacational and I am more for fun, but it has a lot of neat things to do and see. Below is Snow White and the 7 dwarfs.

Meme and Tanek in front of some of the beautiful flowers.

Cinderella's carriage!

Beautiful flowers, with Mickey in the background.

The beautiful fountain at Epcot in the evening.

Tuesday was probably my favorite day of the 3. We did things we hadn't done before and of course we didn't have to travel there or back home on that day. I just really enjoyed Epcot. We went on the ride in the big golf ball that takes you way back in time to the future. We went on the Nemo ride, and a couple other things that I can't remember right now. Seeing their fireworks was my favorite part of the whole trip. They were just incredible. Stephanie was able to capture a lot of them and hopefully she will find time to post them soon. The landscaping is just beautfiul and I could just walk around and look at it. It was nice going over late afternoon because so much of the crowd was leaving. Yeah! Tomorrow I will post day 3. Hollywood Studio's.