Celebrating LIFE With my Siblings, Cousins and Mother! Saturday and Sunday!

Saturday was a fun filled day!!!

It was our first Get Together of 2016!

It was just one year ago that Deanie, Nita, and Lonnie and I decided to set a time every other month or so when we could all get together and visit without it being a funeral, wedding - or as we like to joke - a multiple birth situation!!! How often over the years have we all said, "We should get together!" while attending a funeral? I remember saying these exact same words at least twice in the last 10 years.

I'm glad we actually started DOING it!!!

It was in the spring of last year that we reached out to some of our cousins and they joined us in this commitment to spending a little quality time with each other throughout the year!

Oh, we have had so much FUN!!!

This time we all drove out to Mineral Wells to Cousin Pam's home and let me tell you - the eating was sure good!!!

Nita and Mike posing before they dug into their food!!

Our hosts!!! Nick made Armadillo Eggs that were out of this world!!

He wrapped a shrimp up in the cream cheese stuffed pepper with bacon and it was YUMMY!

I ate FIVE of them!!! He was so good to us! He scraped out every single seed in the peppers so we could eat them without tearing up!!! 

Here's my brother, Lonnie! He's the Birthday Boy!

I wish everyone could meet him in person! He is SO FUNNY!!! And SWEET and KIND!!!

Here he is telling us about how he worked in a bar when he was just 11-12 years old washing glasses!

All of us girls had left home by then and Mother's boyfriend had got him a job there.

His punch line was that when a fight broke out, he had to get out or hide when the police showed up because -"an unsupervised child of 12 years of age in a bar was unheard of back then!!!"

Oh, he kept us laughing even though it was kind of sad at the same time!!!

It was so much fun listening to the stories everyone was sharing!

Anthony was telling about the Thanksgiving Dinner when he was in Jr. High school.

He didn't like the English peas that was served along with the turkey and dressing and potatoes in the cafeteria so he decided he would eat every single one of those peas FIRST!

"So they wouldn't be there staring him in the face" as he put it and he could enjoy the rest of the meal!

Alas, by the time he had the last pea eaten - the lunch break was over and it was time to go back to class!!!! Gay says he STILL isn't fond of English Peas!!!

We smiled and laughed all afternoon!!!!

We love Pam and Nick's house! It's all so open and such an easy floor plan for entertaining!!

It just felt GOOD to be together!!

This is Gay and Joyce and they are sisters in law.

Joyce lives here with her daughter, Pam.

Joyce is a beautiful lady inside and out. Quiet and elegant.

Gay is feisty and funny. I love how we all have different personalities and strengths and weaknesses and together - we are FAMILY.

We are comfortable with each other. 

We pray for each other.

We encourage one another.

We love being 'Family!'

Toni Sue and Pam are two of the 'younger' cousins!

We are an age integrated bunch!

Pam let us tour her lovely home and see the new additions she's made to the decorations and furnishings! 

Pam is a professional quilter and loves everything that has to do with sewing.

The Singer sewing machine that was in this cabinet is on display in her living room - about 8 photos above this one!

This antique quilt is a Princess Feather design and was made around 1890 - 1900 by Pam's step father's grandmother!!

The quilt is actually red and green. The green dye fades to brown over time because of the natural dyes they used back in that time.

What a treasure - and Pam DOES treasure it!!!

There are so many beautiful things to look at in her home, I could do a blog post a mile long!!!

I am just in love with this gorgeous pink glass lamp - which I BELIEVE she said came from our favorite store - Goodwill!!!

Pam has a room for her grandson and it is just adorable!!!

Lots of charm and many things from thrift stores!!!

She is a diva at finding great things there!!!

Dear patient, loving husbands - Charlie and Louis Dean!!

They are so good natured and they love these visits just as much as we do!

They know to just sit back and relax!

The afternoon flew by and it was time to go home!!!

THIS is what you see when you open the front door!!!

A beautiful country home!!

Even the yard is charming!

Nita, Deanie and Pam!

Thank you SO much for the lovely afternoon and the great hospitality!!!

I love that we are a family of strong people who have all overcome hard things in life but those things did not make US hard! We ALL must 'overcome' to succeed in life! Overcoming really is a life long process!

Now it was time to get back to Fort Worth and pick up Mother and bring her home with us!

She was ready to go!!!

She settled right in to the guest room like she'd been there forever!

We had stopped to pick up pizza on our way home so after we ate we put our feet up and watched back to back episodes of Alaskan Bush People!

We really like that show! I took a little quiz I found on their site about which member of the Brown Family you are most like. Guess what one I got? Noah!

This morning, instead of going to church, we stayed home and watched The Winning Walk on TV with Ed Young, Sr. I really wanted to attend church but Mother generally uses a walker and I thought it might be just a little too much for her. We did our Bible reading afterwards and so we did, indeed, worship today!

They look like they were pretty engrossed in the sermon!

Afterwards we ALL did the Karate exercises!!

Mother included!!!

She's a really good sport!!

Louis Dean made brunch for us!

Homemade biscuits, fried eggs and bacon and, coffee, of course!!!

This has been one of the most relaxing Sundays I've had in a long time!

I have napped and read. I am trying to find a book I can get into and that's not as easy as it seems!

I have picked up and put down two so far today. Put down as in throwing them in the Goodwill bag!

I have stacks and stacks of books in this house and am bound and determined to get involved in a good book before I turn my bedside light out tonight!

This afternoon we caught up with all the Alaskan Bush People episodes and then watched Madam Secretary. Tonight's program was about the death of the secretary's husband's father and how his family handled that. It made me glad my siblings and I are so close and that we spent the day together yesterday. We took a break and then finished our evening with Downton Abbey!!!

The perfect ending to this Sunday night!!!

Now it's time for me to close all the doors and turn off all the many little lights I have on in this place! Lucy is in her kennel snoring behind me as I write at the desk in the sewing room.

Maddie is crunching her cat food and will want to go out in another minute or two.

Mother went on to bed and Louis Dean is in his music room where he said he would be cleaning and clearing for awhile. You can barely step through the door and it is a mighty narrow path to his computer! Oops!!! I can hear him singing along with You Tube so I'm not sure how much work is getting done in there!

Well, tomorrow is another day!!