When I was a child we always went to my maternal Grandmother’s house for Sunday, Easter, and Christmas dinners. As my Grandmother aged and was afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease someone had to take over these duties. So it moved to our house. My Mother took that over very easily, or so it looked to me. Looking back I remember occasionally having it at this Aunt’s house or that one’s. But quickly it moved to always being at my mother’s house and with time the Sunday dinners turned into just our family and Christmas moved to another Sunday in December. Then we moved our Grandmother’s birthday in with Christmas since it was the same month and consolidated two get-togethers into one since there were so many folks (not just grandkids, but great grandkids) to coordinate with now. Time passes and now my Grandmother has moved to Heaven and my mother too. And the duty and honor has to fall to someone if the family is to continue to get together. Now I’m the mother and grandmother. My sister, female cousins, and I are in that transition mode of trying to keep it going. We haven’t landed on a “we always go here for holidays” just yet. We had Christmas at my cousin’s home. This year we are having Easter at mine. So we’ll get together here the Saturday before Easter. No mother and grandmother for me. My cousins, sister and I are the mothers and grandmothers. I’ll be hosting the get together not just for my children and grandchildren, but also for their siblings and cousins, nieces and nephews.

My mother’s great grandchildren will be here, my grandmother’s great great grandchildren. What an honor to know these ladies who went before and have shown us the way. What an honor to pick up the quilt and keep the family wrapped together. Women do this. Sorry – two cousins are missing in this photo!

Just now getting back to my blog and realized I haven’t updated since we moved last OCTOBER! Working on the consistency thing. ☺ So…we’ve moved closer to our church, work, and activities. This also allowed my widowed father to downsize to a garden home. My sister bought his house, we bought her house (which are across the road from each other), and he moved down the road to home he can manage better. Its working out great for all of us. We really miss the 5 acres we lived on for 10 years.

That was our pasture. But, boy, is it nice to get to and from everything we run to in 5 to 10 minutes instead of 45 to 60. Makes getting to church at night so much easier. Now Daniel can make choir on Sunday nights, dinner & Pioneer club on Wednesday night, and all those Cub Scout meetings through out the week. Not to mention I’m close enough now to actually shop at the Whole Food Market!! YAY! We are much, much more regular at Church and more involved in the activities of life. It was a hard move and hard decision. But I think the sacrifice is definitely worth it. Before we were almost sequestered from society. We don’t want to be of the world, but we do want to be in it. We can’t impact the world if we are shut off from it. And while life out there was nice and had its practical purposes too for a time, it was beginning to cut off the impact we could have on the world. It was beginning to be all about us and not about anyone else. Now people can stop by (and do) much more often, and we can get out and see others too. We are so thankful for the great times and friendships we held there. Now, I’m very excited to see how God plans to use us here.