Quick Before I Get Sidetrack'd

As I was writing the posts last week about our trip to Granny and Papa’s house, memories kept surfacing of the times we’ve spent there.

The memories for Matt go back to the beginning.  He remembers when the land was just that, land, filled with trees and potential.  He remembers the steps along the way to completing the house and Granny and Papa making the move out there.  He has fond childhood memories of summer visits, playing in the creek, fishing in the pond, and walking in the woods.  He always said he wished he could spend the whole summer at Granny and Papa’s instead of only a week.

There are also lots of memories that we’ve made there together.  My first visit was just over 10 years ago.  Matt and I had only been dating a few months, and he took me to meet his grandparents while we were in town for Spring Break from college.  I fell in love with his grandparents and their place immediately and am very thankful that I’m still visiting a decade later and have so many good times to reflect on.

This was the place we were married.  In the kitchen we ate chicken salad sandwiches as we waited for time for the ceremony.  In Granny’s huge garden we were photographed with our families.  Under a rose arbor we pledged our love for each other as we said our vows.

This was the place we made our first home.  The first two months of our married life we lived in the little house on Granny and Papa’s property (originally built for Matt’s great-grandmother).  We would come home in the evenings to find fresh picked tomatoes sitting on our back porch railing; we would go into the garden to pick corn from the stalk and blueberries straight from the bush.  We would go down the driveway every Thursday evening to sit on the screened porch and chat.  It was a special season in our life for many reasons, not the least of which was Matt finally getting to spend the whole summer at Granny and Papa’s house.

And now we have memories there with our children.  Little standing beside the Christmas tree.  A trip to play in the creek with her Daddy.  Boo in Papa’s lap.  Granny and Papa loving our children like they’ve always loved Matt.

I am thankful for all the memories we’ve created on the farm and especially with Granny and Papa.  It is sad to see it go, but it will always hold a special place in our hearts.

For the last 20 or so years, Matt’s grandparents have lived on about 50 acres of land outside of Nashville.  Several months ago, they decided that the house and land were too much for them to handle any longer and put the place up for sale.  This is bittersweet for all of us.  We understand that this is the right thing for them to do, but we will miss the place; it holds lots of memories for everyone.

Fast forward to last weekend.  Matt and I wanted to take the kids and visit his grandparent’s again before they move.  Matt’s brother and sister-in-law wanted to visit too, so we decided to try to be there at the same time.  As it ended up, Lu and her family were able to come to town as well, so we had a bit of a family reunion.

We spent the weekend relaxing, chatting, and laughing. Sitting on the screened porch (in the comfy swing, of course) was bliss.  Catching up with family that we don’t get to see nearly as often as we would like was wonderful.  Having the opportunity to meet our newest nephew before he’s a year old was great.  And, of course, it was nice to make a few more memories (and pictures) at the “old homestead”.

Rewinding to Memorial Day weekend (uh, yeah, I’m a bit behind here)...

Matt and I talked about going to Nashville to spend Memorial Day weekend with family but decided we weren’t ready to tackle a road trip and multiple visits with a not quite six weeks old baby and an active 22 month old.  So, my family decided they would come visit us.

Saturday morning my parents, brother, and two nephews arrived to spend about 24 hours with us.  I was quite excited to see my brother and the boys; October was the last time I saw them for any length of time (we are separated by about an 8 hour drive).  And I think they were pretty excited to see Little and The Boy.

Soon after they arrived we headed out to eat ribs and then came home to visit and hang out.  The guys threw baseball in the backyard (my oldest nephew is big into baseball and quite good at it from what I hear), we passed around the baby, everyone played around with Little.  And with Matt, my brother, and the two boys in a house together, quite a bit of rough housing took place.

Saturday evening Matt and I were able to go out for dinner and coffee.  It was quite refreshing to step out of the hustle and bustle of our life with the kiddos and enjoy some time together.  Thanks to Daddy and Momma for keeping the little ones so we could celebrate our anniversary.

Saturday night all of our visitors piled into the living room on the couch, an air mattress, various pallets.  It was quite a site to behold; one big family slumber party.  When Little got up Sunday morning she decided it was her job to wake everyone else.  She didn’t have any trouble waking Grandmommie and Grandad, but the boys took a little more work.  She climbed up on the air mattress between them and started saying “wake up, wake up” until they roused and looked at her.  It was too cute watching her try to get the big boys out of bed to play.

It would have been nice to have a little more time together, but it was great to see everyone.  Little thoroughly enjoyed the attention of her uncle and cousins!  And now we are all looking forward to the next time we’ll be together, during our family vacation in the fall.

Things are going well around here.

Enjoying the pretty weather – playing outside, walks, trips to the park.

Not getting as much sleep as I’d like (on that note, why does the 3 week old growth spurt hit right at the height of sleep deprivation?  That only adds insult to injury).

Managed to clean the kitchen (except for mopping) and dust part of the living room today – progress on the housekeeping front.

Looking forward to a visit from Matt’s parents this weekend.

Hope you’re all having a good week.  I’ll try to have some real content to post in the next day or so.

Isn’t that title just so clever? I’m suffering a bit from worn out, ready to have this baby creativity block.

So, what is special about April 7th? In my life it is the celebration of my brother.

I am blessed to have a wonderful older brother, and, although, we are not as close in distance or relationship at this point as I would like (or as we’ve been at other times in our lives), I am happy to say he is also my friend.

And in honor of his birthday, I’m going to tell a couple of stories on myself that I think are amusing…

J’s big hobby in elementary school age and into early middle school was building model cars, airplanes, and boats. He could often be found hard at work on the bar in our basement gluing pieces together, painting the finished work, and applying decals and stickers. He worked all shapes, sizes, and types of models.

Once, when I was probably six or seven years old (possibly a bit younger), J and Daddy were working on a huge model pirate ship. If I remember correctly, it was probably a couple feet long and was amazingly detailed with fabric sails, oars and guns coming from the lower decks, and the whole pirate-y bit. They had put a ton of time and effort into this ship and were probably 90%-100% finished when “the incident” occurred.

For whatever reason, J had set the ship on the basement floor and left it there to get something from upstairs while I was still playing downstairs. I was being a typical girl and doing gymnastics or something on the furniture and was hanging upside down in Daddy’s recliner watching something on TV. I’m not sure exactly what happened, or how it happened, but the next thing I knew I was sliding off the recliner and directly on top of the pirate ship. I remember a crunching sound, the sound of J running down the stairs, and my crying as he yelled.

The ship had attained damage of the hit-by-several-cannonballs type and was totally destroyed. It was an accident, but that didn’t make it any better in the eyes of my 11-ish year old brother who had worked so hard to build that pirate ship.

And then there was the time when I was about three and I flushed J’s pet fish down the toilet. The fish lived in a bowl on our kitchen island. Apparently it was sleeping, but it looked dead to my preschool eyes. I took it to the bathroom, dumped it, and flushed. It started swimming down the drain. Oops!

It’s a wonder he still likes me. Happy birthday, brother!