Catching Up...

On Monday, I should have been celebrating my 24th Wedding Anniversary with Jack, but we spent the day in my mom's hometown of Vernon, AL instead.  My uncle, Emmett Sanford, died this past week and we were there for the funeral.  It was a sad day for everyone.  My uncle was a wonderful man, very giving and generous, wise, funny and outgoing.  He loved to tell stories and was very hospitable.  In these last few years, he and my Aunt Kay (I'm named after her) lived in Destin, FL and we were fortunate on a few occasions to have the opportunity to go and visit them and stay at their condo on the beach.  It's been a couple of years since we have visited because our vacation times just haven't lined up right so that we could go, but I had just realized that this next spring was probably going to work and I really wanted to go see them...  I'm sad now that I won't have that chance.

You realize at times like this how easy it is to get distant from people.  After my grandparents on my mom's side died, that whole side of the family didn't get together as often and we all just drifted into doing things with our own growing families.  I guess that is sort-of a natural thing that happens, but until this past Monday, I hadn't seen some of my cousins in probably 25 years!  Some of that was because we lived in Boston for so long and missed some family events along the way, but still, that seems crazy now.  So I guess one good thing that came out of all of this is that I got to reconnect a bit with my cousins that I grew up with and always spent at least a week out of the summer with every year.  It was really good to see them...

And I enjoyed getting to show Mackenzie and Anna around Vernon where my mom and Aunt Kay grew up.  I have so many good memories of this tiny town in western Alabama.  Playing "shoestore" with my cousin Lori and making movies together. (that was back in the days of reel-to-reel film!)  Earning money doing chores so we could ride into town to the "dime store" and buy candy.  Making mud pies in the back yard and then covering ourselves head to toe in mud!  Telling my younger brother and sister scary ghost stories and rigging a balloon with a sheet over it in their room to scare them in the middle of the night.  (we were mean - ha)  Of course, that backfired when my brother started crying, ran to my grandmother, and threw up along the way!  We were in so much trouble when she realized what we had done... we got to stay up with him and take care of him the rest of the night! 

Anyways, it was fun back in the day... and all my mom's family lived within a block or two of each other... some are still there! So I took a few pictures that I thought I'd post...

This was my grandparent's house where my mom grew up.  It looks SO tiny now!!  Actually, everything looked so much smaller, including the 'big hill' than ran down the back of this house to Aunt Kay and Uncle Emmett's house.  We rode up and down that hill on our bikes so many times and thought it was SO scary! :)

Just down the hill behind my grandparents' house was Aunt Kay and Uncle Emmett's first house.  That big tree right next to it is a chestnut tree and I stepped on one of the chestnutt burrs barefooted - ouch!  I still vividly remember laying on a bed with my aunt pulling pieces of that thing out of my heel... 

And this is the house that my Aunt and Uncle built right next door to their old house.  Back in the day, it was VERY fancy, especially for small town Vernon. :) 

So that's my trip down memory lane.   The best news from all of this is that my Aunt Kay is recovering and it seems that she is going to be all right.  She has been moved from the hospital in Destin up to a hospital near Vernon and closer to family that can be with her and take care of her.  I hope to get to see her in the next week or so.

It seems like just about every year my wedding anniversary gets 'sidelined' by something else... I believe this was one of the reasons I said, "I'll never get married at Christmas time..."   Yeah, right.  But we did get to go out to dinner with my sister and her husband last night at The Melting Pot, so I think I'll count that as our Anniversary Dinner!  :)  And the neat thing about this anniversary is that it marks the point where we've been married now as long as we haven't been married.  We got married at 24, so we've doubled that now.  :)  I can actually remember thinking a long time ago that it would be funny when we got to that point...  and I'm thankful that we've made it this far.  :)

Just a clarification about the picture.  It was 'tacky sweater night' at The Melting Pot, which meant you got a great discount on your dinner if you were brave (desperate?) enough to wear a tacky Christmas sweater!!  SO, that's what we did.  :)  And believe it or not, these both belong to Mackenzie - ha!