Tuesday, April 23, 2013

An unexpected family reunion

Big day today with 3 donations getting us over $2000...well on our way to our goal.  We are on day 18 out of 39 and now sitting at 37% of our goal.  We have a long way to go when I look at it that way but we are much closer thanks to these three donations today.

THANK YOU

Helen,
Laurie,
and Brooke

...for your contributions today.  We've told you individually how much it means to have your support but I'll say it again.  THANK YOU for being our friends and continuing to donate every year.

These pictures that I'm sharing today are of a very difficult time.  This happened last year after I had found out that I got the new job and while we were in the process of preparing the house to put it on the market....my grandmother passed away.  I need to take the moment to share a special story about my grandmother, or as all 6 of her grandchildren call her, Mammaw.  It may seem strange to tell a "special" story about her death but Mammaw's health had been declining for years.  When we took the girls to Texas back in the summer of 08, we visited Mammaw and even then she was having a hard time communicating with us, but we had a fantastic visit and made some wonderful memories.  As Mammaw got closer to death, we wondered if she would reach her 90th birthday.
 Sure enough, Mammaw stayed strong and God decided to bring her home on her birthday...
90 years to the day after she was born.
July 5, 1922 - July 5, 2012

Absolutely amazing.  Safe to say that this was a difficult time to drop what was happening in Alaska and fly home to Texas and be with the family.  Financially, we couldn't afford to bring Lisa and the girls but it was amazing to have so much of the family come together to celebrate her life.  So these pictures are of that trip...because it was the first time in a LONG time that all the cousins and great grandkids, etc...were all together.  Pretty amazing gathering.

These first few pictures are before the viewing at one of Mammaw's favorite restaurants,
the Kuntry Katfish.



Pictures from the viewing, it became quite the reunion and celebration of family, music, and life!


Athe graveside service, it was pretty amazing  As we were driving, we had to go through a pretty incredible thunderstorm. I think we were all dreading arriving at the graveside and having to deal with a July Texas thunderstorm ...but wouldn't you know the storm ended just as we arrived.  The temperature must have dropped 20 degrees thanks to the rain.





A vry powerful picture of my mom saying one last goodbye to her mom.
Mammaw's kids and kids-in-laws
The grandsons
The grandchildren!
The Brown clan minus my 3 ladies
The Smith clan



Well unfortunately I'm having to post this from my ipad so I'm having some issues with the settings....so I can't add captions to most of the pictures. Hopefully soon I'll go back and clean this post up a bit. As you can see, it was quite an incredible trip to Texas.

1 comment:

Honey said...

Andy, thank you for these pictures. I've seen them, but in this setting they are especially meaningful. I always enjoy being reminded of our family love!!