The Oakes Family Gathering is on! They all started arriving on Thursday from all over the country. It has been great seeing everyone and finding out what is going on with all of them. We started out having lunch at our little local restaurant. Our table started out with 5 people and then 2 more came in and so we moved to another table. Pretty soon 2 more came in and we all just got "cozy" and sat there and ate and talked.
Friday night my cousin Bill was ordained as a Minister for the Assembly of God Church here in Warrens that my Uncle Lloyd and some others in the family started. Lloyd is going to stay on, but in a different capacity and Bill will take over the senior pastor positition. It was a blessing to be there. Bill was already a minister, but wanted to change over to Assembly of God that goes along with the church. His whole family was there except for his kids and their generation. You know how it is with the young.....trying to make it in the world. You never have time or the money to do things like travel. Of course I don't know if that particular concept changes as you get older. Somehow we all seem to fill our lives to overflowing yet never seem to accomplish anything.
Saturday morning we met out at our local campground where some of the family is staying for "camp cooked" biscuits and gravy. It was wonderful! Then the hearty spirited people climbed the rock ( a VERY large rock formation here). Will and I took advantage of the kids being busy and ran to Walmart while they were up there with Grampa.
Last evening they came to our house for a "bonfire". It was too hot when they got here to start the fire and we were all having such a good time, we never did light it. It was the best non fire bon fire I've ever been to. I cooked hot dogs and sausages on our grill and had already made sloppy joes. There were baked beans, potato salad and some other salads. Gallons and Gallons of southern sweet tea and lemonade and lots of eating talking and even some singing!
I took everyone on a tour of the house and they all just loved the stone fountain Will installed for me on our bedroom wall. I think that we probably have one of the most romantic bedrooms around. Stucco "castle like" walls with arched doorways, painted stone walls with ivy on them in the bathroom, a cast iron canopy bed with hand made crochet panels lit by many white Christmas lights and a fountain. All it needs are a fireplace and a hot tub. Just give us time. Now that I think of it, it was pretty funny with 9 of us or more, standing in our master bathroom talking about the wall finish.
Today is the actual main get together. We will all meet this afternoon for a huge pot luck lunch with talking, eating and singing again. We all are going to look at slides my grandparents took and old home movies. It should be great fun. There will be family pictures displayed, genealogy finds and more. I hope that everyone has a lovely time!
The best thing that happened though this weekend was our visitor Friday night here at the house. Someone had left the back door open and we ended up with a bat inside. My hubby who I call "oh Mighty hunter" had to get it back out of the house. He grabbed his bath towel and the chase was on. From the family room to the bedroom where Jessa was (of course) it was "hot pursuit!" Will prevailed and the intruder was dispatched to the outside again. Oh and let us not forget the cat that was "helping" and managed to pull the thing down out of the air before it got away. I'm glad that Will was here because I would have closed the bedroom doors and hid. Most people around here don't play tennis but they do have tennis rackets FOR THE BATS!!
Well, time to get busy and get ready for another day. We were so busy yesterday that we even didn't get a chance to call Mom Donaldson and wish her a happy birthday. It ended up that they called us before we could call them. Even then, I was so busy that we sang and I continued on with clean up. I hope it was a happy one for her. I'm not going to mail her present to her because they are hoping to come up for the Iola car show July 8th and I will give it to her then and we can all enjoy watching her.
Well, onward and upward!!!! Everyone have a blessed day. May the Lord reveal himself to you all in a new and exciting way today.
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