Mighty Mississippi / Family

My friend Mary Ann and I have gotten out of the habit of our twice weekly long walks, hence I have put on even more weight!  Oh boy, it is so easy to say "I'll walk tomorrow".  And. then. tomorrow. the same.  This morning,  after a couple of cups of coffee, before I had time to talk myself out of it, before I even had breakfast, I grabbed my walking stick and headed out the door for a quick "walk around the block" (4.1 miles).  Now I feel so energized!  I really need to do that more often!

A few days ago Mary Ann, her daughter Ellie, and I went over to the Mineola Nature Preserve to walk their nature trail.  It was a nice sunny morning for a walk.

Can you see the yellow butterflies in the blue flowers?

 

 

The city of Mineola, along with hundreds of volunteers, do a wonderful job of keeping the trails open and beautifying the surrounding landscape.

We recently traveled to Mississippi for a family reunion.  Tom's mother grew up in the small settlement of Cato, Ms., which is near Brandon, Ms., and the reunion was to be held in the fellowship hall of the Cato Baptist Church.

The road trip to get there always takes us across the mighty Mississippi River.  This is the "new" bridge. 

This is the "old" bridge.  The highway and the train track shared the same bridge at that time.  Look how narrow the travel lanes used to be! 

A cool view of both bridges as the sun is setting.

So much Civil War history in this area.  The Mississippi River played a crucial role during the war and is still a thriving waterway today. 

This view is looking north from the bridge at a major curve in the river and a long line of barges being pushed southward, and of course there is a casino partially visible behind that clump of trees.

The old bridge is no longer open for vehicle traffic but it is still being used as the train crossing over the Mississippi River.

We awoke early on Saturday morning and went for a walk with Tom's brother Tim and wife Kathy.  Right close by our hotel was a hospital tat had this neat serpentine walking path winding around under some beautiful large shade trees.

Following our three mile walk we went back to our hotel to get ready for the Martin Family Reunion.  I would not let BooBoo go with us since there were to be a lot of small children there, and BooBoo is always full of mischief.   So BooBoo just chilled-out in the cool room.  It was to be a warm muggy day in Mississippi.

This is Tom's nephew Steven, holding his cute baby boy, Nolen.  Steven was in charge of the program for this year's reunion and he and his wife Natalie put together a fun day interactive entertainment.

Natalie feeding Nolen a snack.......

There were fifty-five relatives in attendance; the food and conversation was great.

The day was enjoyed by both young and older young folks.

Tom's cousin Phil and wife Karen from New Orleans always add a bright spot to any family get-together.

Tim and Tom with their Aunt Ruth, who reminds us so much of Tom's mother.  {Tom's mother, Sue, was fourteen years old when Ruth was born.}

This was such a pretty old barn in the Cato community.

Following all the food and fellowship with everyone at the fellowship hall, the "after-party" (with just Tom's mother's siblings' plus kids) always moves over to Aunt Ruth and Uncle Murphy's house.   

We could stand only so much sitting around, snacking; Terrell, Tim, Tom, and I went for a walk in the woods behind the house.

Since Tom and I both love handmade pottery,  a group of us decided to go to Emmett's, a wonderfully eclectic pottery place in Brandon.

Tom stands next to the kiln.  That huge rack of shelves is mounted on rails so it can be loaded with pottery, then rolled into the kiln to be fired. 

Little Nolen looks like he is tired of shopping...

Emmett and his wife make some really pretty and useful pottery.

Here is our latest piece that we purchased there to add to our growing collection of beautiful pottery, which we use every day.

It has been about eight years since we had attended one of these reunions, so the teenagers then, are grown up now, and have kids of their own.  The "new" grandmothers are enjoying this time in their lives!   Haven't we all done this before?  ...making the "open mouth" motion with our own mouths as we are attempting to get the little ones to open their own mouths.  I love it!

Of course when we got home from Mississippi, we had to pick the garden.  Again.  The tomatoes were just beginning to ripen.

...and this is this morning's pick.

We are staying very busy picking the garden, processing the veggies for the freezer, making fresh salsa (Yummee!), mowing, mowing, mowing, and going to our paying jobs so we can have money for another great vacation!