and then we started having dinners in the park with all the family ..eating, skating (remember that maryann?) eating some more and of course the wonderful volleyball games! you kids had lots of room to play and just hang out with cousins
for the past while now, we have celebrated at the house, and then after our tummies settled we would play a rip roaring game of volleyball at the park...... the family has grown and with growth comes the sharing of holidays and trying to fit everyone and everything in.......and thankfully we manage to celebrate together.......for some it's every other year, but we celebrate with them in our hearts even so.
i am so very thankful for this family of ours and for all that everyone "brings to the table". with the holiday just around the corner, things get so hectic and busy and fun and hectic and busy and fun and.......i just wanted to take a quiet moment to tell you all how much you are loved and how grateful and blessed i feel that you are my family!
have a wonderful thanksgiving remembering the past and appreciating the present
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3 comments:
mom...i love this post! i love that little grandma in the first picture...how beautiful she is! my memories of thanksgivings with this family are some of my richest memories...so cozy and comfy! i miss those days but also relish in the fact that i have this family who loves and lives in such a beautiful way! i love you mom!
Ah, Kim,you've got me crying again!! All through the year I buy Christmas gifts and store them in boxes in my bedroom closet. Today was the day to dig them all out and see to whom I was going to give what. But in so doing I got bogged down in some old photograph albums that had me crying like a baby. Photos of you and Kenny as little kids, teenagers, Ken in the Navy and you gone to Oregon and then the arrival of grandkids for me and Mom and all the beautiful little kids! We all looked so young and now the grandkids are having kids of their own. My big birthday bash with the cloggers at that big hall and all the entertainment the grandkids put on impressing on everyone what talented kids they were. And Angela flew in from North Carolina with little Josh who was only a few months old and will be 8 years old in December. And I remembered how on this day Juanita would be baking pies and making fresh cranberry sauce and getting all the ingredients ready for the cornbread dressing. She would be up so late tonight and then up early in the morning to stuff the turkey and pop it in the oven and fix all the myriad of things that could only be prepared on Thanksgiving Day. And how she would have the table set to look like something out of Good Housekeeping Magazine.
And then so many photos of Button and Irene, Uncle Cal, Jay and Lucille, my Mom, Margie and Jimi and all the others of our family who are only memories now. And then Alberto and Manuel graduating 8th grade and they are now 22 and 23 respectively and Manuel married. And most of my grandkids married with kids of their own making me a great grandpa and me going to be 80 in June. Wow! enough to make a person cry when I realize how time marches on and how my babies had babies and those babies have now had babies. I am a fortunate man to have experienced so much love. My kids married great mates and I love every single one of their mates without exception that my grandchildren have chosen. I won't see who my greatgrandchildren choose but I trust in their judgment just as I have all the others. All things pass with time and we all know that "time waits for no man." So bearing that in mind "I've had a good run!" Dad
Those early Thanksgivings were a lot of fun when the families were small enough that we could all be together. I remember one year when we were going to Byron and Clara's and it had rained a lot and we didn't know if we could cross the river. We also feared if we ate any of Clara's biscuits that we would surely drown!!
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