Just for the record, I will be blogging a little bit more since I have a tendency for having memory failure from time to time. The memories are there but I have trouble remembering the details and sometimes I miss an entire memory. I have to have someone tell me the things I have done as a child. I used to have great memory and stranger yet is when I remember things that other people don't remember.
From the 16th through the 30th of March, I spent time with my sister and her husband in Florida! I had a Grand time and of course did not want to leave. I mean who would want to leave Florida! Hahaha! If you were a person who was born and raised there and moved half way through your life, it is still called Home. I am a absolute water baby. The ocean there in the peninsula and further south is all warm. I got in and stayed in for a long time! Just a playing in the surf, pretending to be Superman letting the waves carry you and send you flying forward. And then your butt hits the sand floor and sand gets in places you didn't know you had!
Destin was pretty awesome. I ate at Hard Rock Cafe with Sarah and ate at The Bread place with my sister. I don't remember the name of it. I went to several antique shops, a few books stores, and even to a flea market.
Crestview (the place I grew up in) has grown very much so. Ed and I went for a drive one day and he treated me to lunch and we drove around some. At first, I didn't recognize the streets nor the area because over 20 some odd years the city is going to change. The old house I used to live in is now trashed and the area is the bad side of town now. I remember my friend Sarah and I used to play at the house with Barbie dolls and once we buried a time capsule under the tree in the side yard. I do not know if it is still there. Building a time capsule sounds like fun, I'd like to do it again. We drove by Grandma Orene's house that we used to visit a lot. Her house is over by Crestview High School. I have a lot of good memories from that house. It was upsetting to see that a Realtor lady had the place remodeled. The shape is the same in general but you can tell the difference and from the orange paint job. That house used to be brick with cute little bushes running down the sides off a paved little walkway to the road. There were pecan and fruit trees in the back and a huge gate section on the side of the house that had vines crawling all over it. It had roses and grapes covering it.
My favorite memory though was when Grandma and one of my mom's sister had steamed a large amount of shrimp that looked like to me at the time were the size of baseballs. I knew then shrimp is going to stick to my four food groups always. I loved to hear Grandma talk and she always called me Jenny. I still can hear her sometimes calling my name kind of like a tape recorder repeating itself. Sometimes, I feel like she comes back to visit and to see how her family is doing. I don't know if God allows them to come back and visit us but only he knows.
My sister and Ed cook quite a bit in their new home he had built. Most of the meals are healthy and tasty. Ed took me fishing a couple times and I love doing that. I love fishing! In the front of the house is a pretty good size lake with a Bass, trout and brim. Ed says he has seen some gator in there too but they are about 4 foot long. I caught two bass and Ed caught two as well and we all ate them for dinner one night. He showed me how to clean them too. I just need to learn to cook them now. We talked about going to the movies to see "Coraline" but are plans changed. We ended up watching American Idol, a lot of House shows and a movie called, "Carnival of Souls."
One weekend we had a storm. At one point, lightening came down the chimney while we were trying to watch TV. It was a quick flash and a boom and we were surprised it came down that close to us. We were sitting on the couch and the fireplace was in front of that.
Sarah and I got together a few times. We either had lunch together, went shopping at The Commons in Destin and went to the beach. We went into Crestview one day and spent time eating pizza, checking out both of our old houses and the places we used to go to as a kid. That has been one of my favorite memories I made with her that day. It was nice to catch up on old times. That evening we went to a gathering that Sally Yozviak invited is to. It was a great memory too! We had went to a church potluck at the Jordan's house and was able to see people I haven't seen in ages. People like Mrs. Philpot, Steve and Sally, Margie and her husband. There was another couple but can't remember their names. It was nice to find out what happened to my old buddies that I grew up with are doing ok and living in other areas of Florida. But it would have been more memorable if they were there such as Sam Yozviak and Maleah Jordan.
Another great memory was with Aunt Lottie. My sister, Ed and me all set up time to go see her. It ended up being a happier reunion than I expected. It was a wonderful surprise to see she planned out a potluck and invited others to come over. I was able to see my cousin Winston and his wife and 2 kids, Aunt Polly and her daughter Pollyanne and uncle Brenton and his wife. I hope I didn't forget anyone else. The food was great! They had the best green bean casserole I've ever had. And all the deserts were delish! The next day I spent time with Lottie and she took me all over place and went to visit several cemeteries, including Grandma and Grandpa's. It was neat to see Yellow river Cemetery since some of Grandma's mother and her family was buried there. I had taken a ton of pictures of the Barrow family until I tried to recently move them into my mini SD card in my cell phone. I learned the hard way even if you move them and thinking that deleting them from the cell phone that they would would be in the SD Card by then right? Not! So I lost almost all of my pictures! The only surviving ones are on the waterproof camera which are now in Walmart being processed. A few survived that are left in my cell. I've been after Randy to get a new camera for a while. Our current digital is big and bulky and getting old. It is having problems keeping the batteries charged and with that the pictures are unable to load using Vista on the computer. Anyway, Thank you to Lottie for just being there. It is so nice to get to know family again I have not seen in a long time. They show true southern hospitality.
Lets see....For Easter, I went to several practices for choir and we performed on Saturday night prior to Easter and we also performed on Easter morning for 4 different service times. After such, I ended up with a sore throat leading some kind of allergy - running nose, nasal drip backwards creates mucus and phlem....goes into chest area and creates some kind of yucky cough and hacks.
Well, I have had this problem for about a week and a half now. It is not as bad right now and is slowly dying off. Thank God!But I'd say that is my main reason why I did not go to the Easter gathering this year at the Grandparents beach house.
Recent events take us to Yosemite National Park this past weekend with Randy's mom Jeannie and her husband Ken. Lil and Todd went with us as well. I've posted pictures on my MSN Live Spaces and on Facebook. That was a fun trip. Me and Randy stayed the weekend with his mom and step dad in Coarsegold. It is about an hour to Yosemite. We spent the Saturday all day in the park walking around seeing the waterfalls and famous points of intrests and the tall trees. We had dinner in a nice restraunt with a large window view of Lower Falls. I ate swordfish for the first with cuscus and a type of tomato sauce with pilaf rice. Jeannie and Ken bought everyone us dinner. Thank you!!!! That was an awesome meal. I bought a few small things at their shops. A book, a new green hook with a compass on it, some postcards and a new link for my Italian charm braclet. It is almost complete, just need two more to go. I'd like to find one that has an "I love fishing" kind of thing to it. I'm hoping to return to Yosemite to do some real hiking and camping sometime!
Well it is time for me to close. I've been typing this up for a few hours and have to stop for now. Laundry has to be done, lunch time is coming soon which means Randy will be back for lunch in 40 minutes. Currently, we are staying on the Vandenberg FamCamp. We had to leave Lompoc for a week since they shut down RiverPark RV Campground to RVers for a Wine Festival. We are returning there by this Wednesday. Got to run now!
