CRACKER BARREL SUNDAY AND FAMILY MEMORIES

Church was special this morning as this was the last Sunday our senior pastor will be here for 2 months. He is going to Turkey on a sabbatical that has been almost 2 years in the making.
After service I took the family out to my favorite place to lunch.

All the family met here after church and we only had to wait about 10 minutes to be seated although it looked pretty crowded when we got there.
We were seated in front of the blazing fireplace which was giving off quite a bit of heat.

They kept adding huge logs of firewood. I thought how nice this would be if it was really cold outside. Today it was 40 degrees outside but under cloudy skies it did feel pretty chilly.
I had my regular spicy catfish with some favorite sides.

As always it was very good and we all ate our fill. Including g-son who was bribed with a "light saber" he wanted to clean his plate.
We all left and went our separate ways ,hubbie and I made stops at Sam's Club and Ingles on our way home.
We relaxed for the rest of the evening using Sunday as it should be. As I lay on the couch I thought I have been relaxing a lot lately and putting off some things that need to get done so starting tomorrow the relaxing is getting cut down !!
On a different subject, I would like to give blogging another plug. When I started my blog in July of 2009, the main purpose was to leave behind a glimpse into what my life is like for future generations of my family.  I had no idea of the fringe benefits that would be-fall me through my blog.
As time allows I work on my second blog, called "how I came to be" where I research my family history. This blog gets neglected much of the time because time has been scarce for much research lately.  However this blog has reaped a couple of benefits of finding family that I have never met and now I get to share old photos and stories with newfound family in other parts of the country. In September a cousin from Texas found me through my blog and came by for a short visit which was wonderful. A few days ago I was contacted by another cousin who lives in Charleston,SC. I remember her mother when we were younger and also her grandmother and great grand mother who was my dad's sister. Because there were 13 children in my dad's family of which he was the youngest,plus I was born in his third marriage when he was in his 50's that actually puts me in the generation with my second cousins. So I am more of this contacts mother's age than my first cousins which is her grandmother.
She sent me some precious photos of times gone by. This is one I already had but I didn't know exactly who was with my dad (far right) and his sister (next to him) ,and she filled me in.

My second cousin Janet is on left with her dad and mom (dad's niece),one of her aunts (another of dad's nieces) with her little girl Bobbie in front then dad's sister Hattie and there is Old Jack (dad's dog) watching to see what my dad is pulling from his pocket.
They are standing in front of my dad's 55 oldsmobile.
In this next pic this is my dad's sister with her 3 daughters. Back then they all lived in and around Forest City,NC. The one on the far left is this contact's grandmother.

These special pictures are of my dad and mom when this cousin and her family came to visit them probably in June of 1981 which was just about a month before my dad died on July 8,1981.
This is mom and dad with my cousin's family standing in front of dad's log house.

And this is one of just my mom and dad.

The last photo is a more recent photo of my cousins,from left third cousins Joy and Laura,Laura's husband,my second cousin Janet (their mother) and son third cousin Pete.

I am so delighted to have the pleasure of meeting these new found family members and hope that some time in the near future I will also get to meet them face to face.
Love,love ,love these memory stimulators !!!
This has been a nice Sunday filled with God and family and I am so grateful that my precious Savior placed me with the people He did.
Good Night and God Bless.