Friday, November 10, 2017

Family Shots #2

Around Thanksgiving, I try to,wrap up the blog postings for the year so that I can order a printed Blog Book for that year. This year I decided to finish the postings with pictures of our children and grandchildren (previous blog posting Family Shots #1) and with a special final post to include my siblings, my mother and Latona.  

After our last visits with the children and families in October, we started our journey south. Usually, we include visits with my siblings in Pensylvania and New Jersey. Now that my mother is with my youngest sister in Douglassville, PA, we decided to spent a longer visit there.  Happily, my brother and sisters all came together for a big pork and sauerkraut dinner with us and mom.  

Brother Joe and Mom

Joe's partner Nancy and daughterJenna

My sisters Sherry and Dotty

Dottys husband Forrest
                                   

Sherry and her partner Jim

Special adopted member of the family Hoppy.
                                    
       

And Mom's cats Hansel and Gretel


                                                         *********************

My mother and me 74 years ago.
                              

My mother and me a few days ago.

๐Ÿ’•
This blog is a tribute to my mother. She grew up in a church-sponsored orphanage, losing her mother at four years of age and her father to an accident on the railroad. She is filled with a grit about life and a survival spirit that must have originated very early in her life. Although she has faced health issues in her life, she never let it determine her way of being with us.  She loved us and did the best for us, like making sure we had enough food to eat even if it meant she didn't have any.  She made our clothes from others hand-me-downs, and made us happy to be warm and clean. She still gives us gifts and has even paid for our funerals and cremations. Wow!   And she taught us her faith.  Her favorite hymn is The Old Rugged Cross. Now she is 96 years old and lives with Dottie and Forry.  In spite of increasing blindness, she continues on, engaged and alert.  Yesterday, I picked up a puzzle page beside her chair and realized that she attempted and filled in the Soduko for the first time! What spunk! I am so grateful for all that she had done for me. I love you Mom.


This blog is also a tribute to my siblings. These people are some of the most generous and kind-hearted people you could meet.  They take us in every time we come for a visit, planning wonderful meals, movies, outings, beer, electricity, and most of all give us their time. They love Latona as much as they do me. Most of all, I want to say that we really love each other and want the best for each other. We do not squabble over money or items of possible inheritance as many families do.  ๐Ÿ˜
My sister and her husband happily take care of mom and give her a wonderfully secure home for her final days. I am so very proud of them and proud to be one of them! 


This blog is also a tribute to Latona. We have been partners for over thirty years and have walked many paths together, from Baxter State Park, to the Appalachian Trail, to visits to all fifty states, and to thirty-four countries around the world.  We were blessed to have a wonderful home in Eddington on Chemo Pond and now have managed five years of full-time travel in our Leisure Van. We have an enduring love filled with comfort and contentment.  There is a Shainia Twain song that describes our love. She is " Still The One!"

         God is Love and I have been blessed by His love in every aspect of my life. THANK YOU!

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