Monday Musings

Well the last two weeks have been interesting ones to say the least. When we returned from vacation in Tenessee visiting a dear childhood friend of mine, her 10 year old daughter came home with us. Now the questions was what do a couple of empty nesters do to keep a 10 year old young lady entertained for two weeks? She came to Texas on a vacation of sorts –from her everyday life with her older brother and sister and younger brother. She is the quiet child—the little momma of the siblings who cooks and keeps an eye out for little brother to help her mom. Such a sweet girl, and we hardly knew she was around. She watched a lot of television (Nickelodeon & Disney channels) and played with her stuffed animals and feathers. We went to watch Kung Fu Panda with Danita and Brie and went swimming a few times. We also went to the park and went on a couple of short shopping trips and did some crafty activities. Overall all I figured she would get bored and homesick, but the last day before we took her to meet her mom she said she wasn’t ready to go home. I was touched and very surprised! Her stay reminded me of how innocent and fragile childhood is and how there aren’t that many children that get to experience that. (More on that topic another day…)

Anyway we ventured off to Arkansas with a couple of friends (Kay & Ronnie) in tow to drop her off. Afterwards we went to his mother’s house for a quick visit. She is a lovely lady whom we have grown quite fond of and were glad to see her as her health is declining. Reminded of the difficult task of taking care of aging parents and how the roles are reversed—the parent becomes the child and the child becomes the parent. Not an easy task, but one that many people today must face. If I had to do it all again, I would do it again with both of my parents whom I miss greatly!

Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the LORD your God is giving you. Exodus 5:16

Vacation

We returned from our week long vacation on late Friday night. Traveling on the 4th of July was not as bad as we had thought it might have been. We made the 12 hour trip from Tennessee without too much traffic. We even saw some fireworks as we were traveling in Texas.

All in all it was a good trip and we got to do some neat things. We stayed with one of my good childhood friends, Tammy, who lives about 1-1/2 hours from Nashville. The area where she lives is so beautiful--lots of trees and beautiful homes.

One day we went to a live taping of the Crook & Chase show at a studio in the Grand Ole Opry. We got to see Josh Turner and Mark Chesnutt sing, and the ventroliquist Terry Fator from America's Got Talent. That was an awesome experience.

Another day we took a wagon ride tour to the Amish community in Lawrenceburg, TN. It's amazing how these people still have such traditional lives without modern conveniences such as electricity and telephones. Their handcrafted furniture was very impressive.

Another exciting thing we did was go to a dinner theater called Chaffin's Barn. We ate from a delicious buffet (boy were we S-T-U-F-F-E-D!!) and watched a hilarious comedy, "Alone Together".

It was a great vacation with a lot of sights and activities packed into one week. It was good to get to spend some time with my good friend and her four kids. (One of them even came home with us for a couple of weeks. Hope she isn't too bored with us here in Texas.) It's good to get away, but it's always good to get back home too!!