June 6, 2017

52 Years and Counting

June 6, 2017

Wedding reception June 5, 1965

Yesterday June 5, Ron and I celebrated our 52nd wedding anniversary.  We spent most of the day at the office and then went out to dinner late in the evening.  The celebrations were not fancy.  There were not other friends and family with us, but it was a good day.  I think for most of us, when we celebrate special events, we think back over the past and ponder how we arrived at the point of the celebration.

Ron playing with one of the grandchildren

 

Ron and I lead a rather quiet life.  Well, as I just typed that, I thought of those of you who may only know us through this blog.  You are probably thinking of the blog entries you have read and are wondering how I can say it is a quiet life with all the things you have read about in the blog.  I, on the other hand, am thinking about evenings like tonight when I came home, spent a little time in the yard filling the bird feeders and bird baths and then at the computer catching up on the mail.  Ron had stayed to work late at the office and I fixed a very plain supper.

We don't attend very many fancy, formal events, but we do enjoy dinner with friends regularly and  small parties with our Sunday School class.  We are a lot alike in what we enjoy socially.  Social events are MUCH harder for me now due to the hearing limitations.  I don't really enjoy large gatherings or dinning in noisy places.  This past Sunday we met friends for lunch.  In all there were 6 of us, in a very noisy, crowded restaurant, so I could hear almost none of the discussion at the table.

When we celebrated our 50th anniversary, we didn't want a big party.  We just wanted a weekend with our children and their families.  Anytime we get the family together, it is a good time.  We love our four sons so much and love seeing them together and listening to them laugh as they share memories.  God has blessed us abundantly over the years.  There have been easy times and hard times.  But through all those times, God has been there and our family has stood together.  I can't imagine my life with out my husband and our sons, and now their wives and children.

 Working on the bed 

 

Last night we had decided to go to Olive Garden in Harlingen for supper.  As we were closing the office, a storm was blowing in and when we got home, we decided to wait a bit to see if the storm was just blowing over or hanging around.  In a little over an hour it had blown away, just leaving a few huge rain drops at our house and lots of rain at our office.  We headed to Harlingen to find it dry all the way to the restaurant.

 Furniture grandson built from a kit

 

The last week was busy.  We met our son in Harlingen Tuesday evening and brought his two youngest boys home with us to stay a few days.  We had some fun working on projects.  The older of the two built some wooden furniture for a little house and then started preparing to build the house.  He sanded the pieces and painted some of the objects.  The younger of the boys built a wooden airplane from a kit and got some of the parts painted. 

The boys spent some time with me at the office.  We tried most of the fast-food places in town.  We watched the birds, watched episodes of the TV series Monk, and the boys spent hours playing with Legos.  It was a good time together.  One afternoon while the boys were with me at the office Ron went flying with a friend so that they could take photos of an aircraft carrier being brought into port to be dismantled.  He had a great time and got some good photos.

Aircraft carrier

 

For almost 2 years now, I have not had any household help.  I have neglected a lot of the chores around the house.  So I started Saturday by giving the living room and library area a good cleaning.  It is so nice to have all the clutter put away and the dusting done.  Now, if I can just keep up doing the other rooms.  I have worked on one of the bedrooms the last few days, but it will still take a while.  I also worked on sorting one cabinet and reorganizing the items in it. 

 Aircraft Carrier heading into port

 

This blog entry seems to be filled with scattered thoughts and I hope you are able to keep up while I jump from date to date and activity to different activity.  I think in a very recent entry, I talked about going to my niece's wedding in North Carolina.  After that weekend, I returned to Dallas and my little grandson.  Our daughter-in-law Barbara returned home while Mom and my sister Debbie spent a week touring around that part of the country before going to Debbie's house in Idaho.

Mom, Debbie, Barbara

 

Mom intended to stay at Debbie's until about Memorial Day and then come home.  A couple of weeks ago she hurt her back and has been in severe pain ever since then.  The injury was very much like the one she had 3 years ago where she spent 3 months in North Texas with my other sister, staying for weeks in the hospital and weeks in a nursing/rehab facility.  It looked like she was in for a similar extended stay this time.  But today Mom had a procedure done that they tried in Ft. Worth after the other injury.  It seems to have brought much better results this time.  Mom is doing very well tonight.  Hopefully she will be home before too long - maybe a couple of weeks instead of a couple of months! 

Children's musical

Sunday morning the children's choir presented a musical and it was amazing.  The props were awesome, the kids had memorized lots of lines and music.  I give it an A+!  They were having a good time and their director, a young woman named Debbie, had done an outstanding job with them.  There were close to 20 in the bunch.  The kids with speaking parts had microphones and I could hear a lot of what was being said - not all, but enough to follow the story line.

 Children's choir

I will be spending the next two weekends caring for the grandchildren.  Fun times ahead!