A Wonderful Reunion and "Goodbye"

This last week Vivienne and I had a chance to travel down to Silver City and see lots of family.  In retrospect, it was worth the 1800-miles-in-4-days grueling road-warrior trip.

It's hard to describe the meeting with little "almost" 4-year old Jaklynn and Daphne and Pat.

We met on Saturday night at a restaurant in Silver City.  Jaklynn bolted out of the car and ran across the parking lot and into Nana's arm with the biggest hug and kiss you could imagine.  That alone was worth the trip.  We were worried that she wouldn't know who we were but that was not the case.

We then went to a great new playground park in Silver City called the Penny Park, so called because all the kids of the community saved and gathered pennies forever in order to build it.  

 Jaklynn was a blur of constant motion

 "Higher, Nana!"

 Having a meal in the train dining car

 Monkey bars. I'm not sure Nana enjoyed this part

 "Nana's turn.....I'll push"

 Hide and seek

 Nervous on the slide, but once down fear was gone

 Make believe short order cook serving the customers

 Teeter-Tawter.  Spring loaded, not like in the old days

Here we are on Monday at Carroll Hamilton's remodeled home and playhouse and playground

 Grandma Tiede and Daphne enjoying the kids

 Bubba's famous Three Little Pigs

 Grandma Tiede and Jaklynn under the playhouse

 Sandbox Solitude

 Bosom buddies.  Mikira and Jaklynn bonded so wonderfully, it was fun to watch.  Thanks, Michelle for making the long day trip from El Paso.

 "Singing in the Rain". and Dancing...and catching water on their tongues....

 Liyara in playhouse heaven....what to do next.......

 The Wild and Wonderful Wilkes'

 And finally our visit came to an end and it was time to say goodbye after getting Jaklynn some things at the only store in Silver City, so to speak: Walmart.  It was a fantastic time and really a dream come true to have such a great visit and reception from Jaklynn.  It will have to carry us from quite a while.  We hope to see her again after our mission

Family Reunion

It's Sunday morning, July 15, and last night Ben and Karen packed their suitcases, loaded their children in the car and left for the airport.  As we stood waving in the driveway I realized that our family reunion time had finally come to an end.  Now all we have is memories and pictures.

True, it was exhausting for a couple of old people to host everyone, but now that it's over I miss you all.  Funny how that works.....

 I have more than a dozen poses of the fam.  Didn't have time to pick the best one.  Everybody looked best in a different one. 

 Michelle, we certainly missed you but hope you had fun in the hospital that weekend.  Your kids were really wonderful and you should be proud of them.

 4 generations.

 "I'm only smiling cause my dad said to..."

 This is one of my favorites

 The "GQs" of the Sullivan clan

 #29

 I'm not taking my clippers to Spain.  Time to retire.

 Thanks Jared and Erick for getting rid of this stump.

 Chauncey was chess king.

 The Swing

 Team-wrapping champs

Of course I had to end with pictures of everyone exhausted.  But hopefully by now we've all recovered.  There were literally hundreds of pictures to cull through and I'm sure there are some great ones that are not in this collection, but if these conjure up pleasant memories, it will suffice.

So, we're now going to concentrate on getting ready for our mission, well, we will as soon as we get back from our quick trip to New Mexico to say goodbye to Daphne and Jaklynn, L.H. and Jean, Patsy and Grandma Tiede and a few cousins.  That'll be next weekend.  THEN we'll concentrate on getting ready to go and hopefully learning a great deal more Spanish than we have hitherto been able to learn.