Easter Weekend.......

Louis Dean woke up before me on Good Friday morning.

He came to the bedroom door and greeted me with these words, 

"Houston, we have a problem!"

The freezer was not working but it was staying cool so I thought I could use it like a refrigerator.

We took our coffee to the living room and read scripture before we discussed what to do about the fridge. We decided we could go on with our Good Friday family dinner plans and he went straight to Home Depot and bought a small chest freezer so we could save what was still frozen.

Plus he bought a new beverage fridge for the gazebo as that one was just about to give it up.

He was Johnny-on-the-spot! Gone barely an hour!

He backed up to the gate on the west side of the house, unloaded both appliances,  plugged 'em up and we unloaded our freezer things! Crisis averted!

Then we proceeded with our preparations for the family gathering.

I cooked a ham in the electric roaster outside on the deck table.

Potato salad, cream cheese vegetable medley, orange glazed carrots, pepper poppers, and dinner rolls rounded out the meal. Plus I had a table set up with snacks for everyone to eat before dinner.

Everything was ready and we were sitting outside with a glass of wine relaxing and watching and wait  for family to arrive. We knew Summer wasn't going to be able to make it since she was in Odessa visiting friends. She meant to come home sooner but she was having some car troubles.

The Bells came straight from a hockey game so they would not be late!

They were the FIRST to arrive!

And Kailey came running over to Granddad just as soon as her feet hit the driveway!

Logan and Trystan paid me some attention and the party was underway!

Thanks to Trystan, Logan and Kailey for most of  the pictures and videos that follow.

They are all good little photographers and did a good job of documenting our time together.

They caught their Mommy loving on Samantha!

Trystan took this one of Kailey taking the carrot cake to the dessert table in the sewing room.

One of them snapped this pic of the snack table.

Trystan's tour of the dessert table.....all store bought!

Who knew they would be such a hit??

Son Jesse, Levi and Faith arrived next.

Sam and Leigh Ann had to work and they were surely missed!

Louis Dean was heart broke because he had been hoping to make music with Leigh Ann!

We played a few rounds of NUTS after Ben arrived.....all the kids love their Uncle Ben!

Normally, I have the tables done with place settings, napkins and rings and the whole nine yards - but not this time.

I'm not sure why I didn't do that but I took up all the place settings the day before and decided that everyone could sit where they wanted. Instead of some of my pretty dishes, I set out stacks of the white Corelle plates and saucers. Amber furnished us with paper napkins making for easy entertaining and everyone simply chose their glass of choicefrom the cupboard.

There were mixed feelings about there not being a 'children's' table or an 'adult' table.

The kids loved it - meaning the quads. The older grands graduated to the adult table at Christmas.

Mike was laughing and said, in his time, some of the older people had to die before you moved up!

What happened here when our older grands moved up - Louis Dean and I relocated.

Everyone got their own plates and chowed down!

I took the two pics of them at the tables and then Louis Dean and I carried our plates outside to the kitchen deck and ate there. The cats were in the guest room, the doors were all open to the outside and laughter was spilling out of both sets of French doors.

I loved it!

After the plates were cleared we started playing NUTS!

At first, there were just a handfull of people playing and then more came over and it got crowded at the game table in the den.

So I went to the game closet in the guest room and got out more decks of cards.

We moved to the bigger table in the dining room!

Now the games began in earnest!

So much FUN and so much LAUGHTER!

Go BIG or go HOME!!!

The girls got some good photos and videos......

You can see how everyone concentrates on the cards!

Nuts is like Solitaire with suits down black on red in front of you....

then in the middle everyone can play suits up with hearts, spades, diamonds and clubs.

Gamers and Strategy

We need to get together more often and play!

Maybe I'll order pizza and we will have Family Nuts parties this year!

NUTS!!!!!!!

It was a wonderful evening and it went by way too fast!!

I really do!

I love how the kids still do their traditional goodbyes.....

We went to bed pretty soon after everyone left. Logan and Harrison had an early morning hockey game and I fully intended to be there.

However, I slept until 11:00 and made myself get up then.

Louis Dean had left a cup of coffee by my bed and I took a few sips of it even though it was cold.

He thought I would have been up sooner.

Once again, we met in the living room with our coffee - he had warmed mine up for me - and discussed the fridge situation.

Not only was the freezer out - now the fridge part was, too!

We both agreed we need to buy a new one. I was guessing we'd had this one for 10 years.

I was close. We got it on March 31, 2010 so it lasted 11 years and 3 days.

My feet were hurting so badly that I went to bed in tears Friday night and found a heating pad brought some relief. However, the thought of traipsing through Home Depot or Best Buy or any warehouse full of appliances made my heart sink. I simply could not do it.

Louis Dean to the rescue!

With only one cup of coffee and a short devotional, he was out the door in search of a new refrigerator.

He first tried the places here in Irving. Best Buy was out of business and Home Depot got on his nerves.

He called me and said that they had some there but he refused to buy from someone acting like he was doing him a favor to sell him one! NOT a good saleman. By the way - that was the North Irving store.

Now Louis Dean does not have the best sense of direction but he knew there was a Home Depot and a Best Buy on Highway 114......so how to get there? He accidently took a tour through the airport and twisted and turned and wound up coming back out where he finally got back on the 114 "that wasn't in the airport" according to him! He did, indeed, see a Home Depot in Grapevine....but it was on the wrong side of the road and he didn't want to get turned around again, so he kept driving. Gotta love this guy!

*Source*

He finally found a Home Depot - on the right side of the road - in Roanoke, Texas.

There was a wonderful young sales lady in the appliance department who knew what she was doing and found exactly what Louis Dean was looking for in a new refrigerator. God does love this man. 

He bought one that met his expectations AND would be delivered sooner than the others AND was actually less expensive. It will be delivered on Thursday! Win! WIN!!!

In the meantime, I went to the hockey game that Harrison and Logan played in the afternoon. It was a tournament, so that's why there were two games on the same day.

And I didn't take a single picture although Trystan and Kailey had my phone.

They took pictures of themselves but not the hockey game!

And played with some of the photo apps!

After the game. the entire hockey team all went out to eat pizza so I joined them, along with Mike's parents. I had meant to go home and go back to bed - but I thought, "Why not?"

It was a good decision.

The pizza place was Lambert's Ristorante & Wine Bar in what once was Jack Astor's where Amber worked when she was at Northlake College and had just moved into her own apartment.

Other than the pics of theselves, this was the one and only proof of my being there.

I had a good time and came home all relaxed.

But that didn't last long!

Louis Dean had come home and unloaded the great white fridge and had it well on its way out the door.

I helped him as best I could and then looked at the kitchen.

Every single inch of counter space was covered with the contents of the fridge.

I had brought back two big ice chests loaned from Amber and Mike....plus we have several insulated bags. Louis Dean bought several pounds of ice and we spent hours packing away what was perishable and trying to figure out what could be left out, The freezer part of the old fridge still felt slightly cool so we had to make a judgment call as to what we could safely store there.

Bottom line....we were exhausted and fell into bed only to sleep fitfully - at least for me. 

I was up in the wee hours of the morning emptying the dishwasher and getting the coffe ready to turn on when we got up.

We watched the Easter service from Fellowship church online.

I just didn't have it in me to get dressed much less go anywhere.

Praise God for modern technology!

I spent this day doing this and that around the house.

Mainly cleaning the guest room in anticipation for Summer's arrival tonight.

I changed out the winter covers and spread to the spring and summer one.....which led me to reorganize the den closet which is where I keep all the quilts, blankets, covers, duvets, comforters and bedspreads.

I took breaks to keep me from getting too tired.

Who doesn't love John Denver?

This album brought back lots of memeories for me.

Louis Dean and I sat in the living room listening to the entire thing sipping our tea.

When I went back to the den to work on the closet.....Tabitha had twisted her big self around to squeeze into the small basket on the baby grand piano.

Once she vacated the premises, Samantha took her place.

Such sweet kitties!

They bring us so much joy!

Summer arrived safely right around 8:00 tonight.

I had her room all clean and fresh. 

It IS the cats' room so I toook extra care in cleaning it all up nicely and airing it out.

I am back to putting them in their kennels at night.

This roaming freely is not working out for me. 

One reason I didn't sleep well last night was Samantha jumping up on my bed.

I finally put her in the kennel.

Then Tabitha came in and messed with the towels in my bathroom trying to crawl into a space and sleep there. When I woke up with her trying to climb the curtains to catch a moth, SHE went in the kennel.

Tonight, they BOTH were put to bed nicely.

Summer is pretty tired and we are up late so I can do this journal entry.

I'm thinking we can all sleep in on Monday!

This Easter weekend was quite an adventure!

But I loved it!

The last time we gathered for Good Friday was 2018. 

 It was a blessing to be together again.