John 17:13 And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
I love the Christmas season. It is such a blessing to set aside this time to truly reflect on God's precious gift of His Son JESUS CHRIST for this lost and dying world~~~ and more importantly, for sinful me. This season brings about so much joy and a lot of that revolves around our loved ones~~ family and friends. My heart was "full to busting" with the blessings of the season on Saturday.......
We got up very early on Saturday, December 8, to make the trip to T-Town to be with our families for the day. It was a good ride up in Amy's Brian's Suburban with all 8 of us in tow. We enjoyed the 5-hour fellowship going up. (The kids were wonderful!!)
We arrived at Logan's at 11:03 so were just 3 minutes "late" and certainly not the last ones to arrive. Some traditions never change. :) It was a wonderful nearly 3 hours in the restaurant with ALL THIRTY-FOUR of Momma and Daddy D's descendants present. What a joy to get together with Larry's, Richard's, Diane's and Bill's families. If Momma D and Daddy D (I don't use last names on my blog) were able to view the scene from Heaven's portals, they had to be so very pleased that the family remains very close and that it is still growing!! Our newest member this year is 4-month-old Mataea, daughter of Rob and Melinda and GRANDdaughter of Mike and Diane. What a beauty she is!! Here are some special pics of Mataea: (Note: Click any Pic to enlarge it for a better view!)
A special joy this year was that Chip is now pastoring in Huntsville and was able to join us for Dean Christmas for the first time in a very long time, and that Chris and Bonnie and their family were able to attend this year after having to miss last year's get-together. With ALL of us there, we were able to have a picture made of the clan: (Don't forget to enlarge this one!) (ID of folks in the pic is available upon request.)
After that lovely lunch and fabulous family fellowship, we dropped by Susan's sister's home to visit Karen and Paul. What warm hugs and sweet fellowship we had there. Bryan and Trish (Karen's son and daughter-in-law) came over so we add the added blessing of seeing them, too! (Ashley was sick and at home in bed so we were unable to see her and missed her!) Here are some pics of our visit with Paul and Karen:
From Karen's, we met up with my niece, Dee, at the mall. She and her 18-month-old were shopping but visited with us for about 30 minutes. It was so good to see Dee and Jackson. While we were visiting, an old friend~~ Sonny S. ~~ came walking by, and we were able to visit with him, too. It was fun to catch up. Some pics from our mall parking lot visit:
We weren't planning this but ended up staying over to attend the LIVING CHRISTMAS TREE program at our "home" church in C'dale, BUT our nephew-in-law Tim took us to the church during the afternoon to SEE the tree. It brought back a flood of memories of our 20 years at the church and singing in that tree so we changed our plans and stayed for the program that night. It was wonderful and such a blessing to see a LOT of dear friends from our 20 years at that church. During our afternoon visit, Tim let Amy and the kids get into the tree as she had sung in it during her years of growing up in that church. Here are some pics of the tree and of Amy and the kids in it. I certainly didn't brave those tall stairways to try to shimmy into it again. :)
We got home at just past midnight on early Sunday morning but all 8 of us made it to Sunday School on time and had a wonderful day in church. Richard and I hosted our annual "Couples Christmas Party" on Sunday night with 16 friends in our home, but that's another blog for later.
Merry Christmas to all!!
Love,
Susan
.JPG)
