Saturday "Back Home" Blessings and Celebrations!

I promised you HERE yesterday that I would tell you about our Saturday trip when I got back home.  Well, here I am, "back home".

Actually, that is in reality back at my old home where I grew up! Yes, we traveled today to meet family and friends and celebrate my hubby's birthday as well as another friend's birthday, but before we met the group at the restaurant hubby and I had some time to kill so we went down memory lane for a wonderful ride "back home".

I started getting excited when we turned the corner on this road, the road that leads "home".  Back when I was growing up on this road, these houses were not there. It was mostly woods.  This was actually where our bus stop was, and there was nothing here at all way back then in the olden days.

Way back then our house was the first and only house on our side of the road for a long distance.  Now there are newer homes lining the road all the way there, but when we finally got to "our house", it looked pretty much the same as I remembered it, except we didn't have that green paint on the eaves, etc. And someone definitely needs to do some serious tree work to remove some moss out of these trees.

But still...it looks like home...

We were brave enough to pull in the driveway, and I decided to take the plunge and march right up to the door and knock, and knock, and knock some more...

But no one was home.  I kept calling out, "Is anyone home?", but no answer, and there weren't any cars in the driveway, so I figured it was safe to walk around and have a little "looksie".  

No one was watching that I knew of, except maybe this old tree guy...he's been there for quite a few years, just watching people come and go.  He saw us there when we were last there...He was there watching when my parents "left this home" for the last time to go to their heavenly home...Maybe that's why he seems to look a bit sad and lonely...

Ah! there are still some grapefruit on the trees...even though the tree definitely needs to be pruned and taken care of. I wonder if the fruit is still as good as I remember?  I didn't dare pick one, but it was tempting.  

Very tempting...but this is not my family's home anymore.  

I walked around the back yard, calling all the while..."anybody home?"  But no answer.  There's the old shed that I remember when my Daddy brought it home in pieces and re-built it there.  He tore it down from someone's home who didn't want it anymore, and so he brought it here and built it.  I remember that before my Daddy loaded it up with his "stuff", it made a great playhouse and even a "haunted house" one Halloween, complete with scary music on a tape recorder...oh! The memories around this old house...

Here in the back yard you can see back to our neighbor's cow pasture and pond.  We used to go out to the fence and talk to the cows and horses he had there...Oh, I can see that my mother's clothesline is still there...do you see it?  My mother always loved to hang out the clothes, especially the sheets! And I remember many a time running out there to gather them in quickly because of one of our frequent summer afternoon thunderstorms that popped up unexpectedly!

This was always so pretty back here...my daddy kept it so nice.

This is also where the guys played horseshoes every time we all came home for holidays and birthdays and just home to be together.

"Daddy the Champ!"

This was Daddy's "Carriage House" garage and workshop, with an attic upstairs filled with all kinds of interesting stuff.  I remember when he built this "barn"...and my hubby helped him dig the footer, and I remember our little boys were there to make their mark in the wet cement foundation.

(Click HERE for a modern day story about another "Carriage House" built to memorialize this building)

That's about where our family was sitting when this picture was taken of us in 2005, the last Easter we were all together before my mother went to heaven in 2006.

This is the back of the house, and it looks rather worn and tired in this picture. Again...when my parents lived there, it was kept up so nice...  Did I tell you that my Daddy built this house himself?  Yes, with the help of his own Dad, my Grandpa.  I remember as a little seven year old girl running around the bricks and blocks and boards and nails and loving the smell of fresh cut lumber.  I also remember being stung by a scorpion on the bottom of my foot because I was running around barefoot in the dark...Yes, I remember that quite well!!! You would too, if it happened to you!!! Trust me.

The window above that you can see just to the right of the screen back porch, was my sister and my bedroom.  The window on the end was my two big brothers' room, and our parents' room was on the front.  The window inside the screen porch was where the dining room is.  And the jalousie windows is where the laundry room is.  The kitchen is through the door behind the screen door across the porch.

Here's my Mother in the kitchen back in the early days.  She was a great cook, and pies were her specialty. 

This is the way the kitchen looked when I last saw it. I prefer to remember it this way. Homey and much loved with lots of wonderful memories.

There used to be beautiful climbing roses and other flowers climbing and growing around this pergola/trellis. It was a beautiful place inside those glass windows to sit and watch the birds.

The room on the end here below was added onto the house while I was in high school. It was originally supposed to be a garage, but the car never once sat inside it. There was a garage door on this side of the house, but it was Daddy's workshop before he built the Carriage House. And then he closed this room in and made it his "Train Room" when he retired and started collecting toy trains....Oh the delights of watching those trains go round and round. The grandchildren called him "Grandpa Choo Choo". 

Here is an old picture taken when our grandson Noah came to visit Great-Grandpa Choo Choo for the first time. He was 4 months old.  You can tell he was real impressed.  Our son Matthew was having the most fun watching his Grandpa show off his trains.  Such happy memories from inside this old house.

Oh, this is a sad picture...This WAS the navel orange tree. This tree produced the sweetest, juiciest, best ever navel oranges ever in its day.  It's so sad that it hasn't been taken care of and now it really needs to just be cut down.  That did make me feel sad.

But look at this Kalanchoe plant...it just keeps on growing and growing. Daddy planted that many years ago.  Nothing seems to kill it!  I wish I could have taken some home with me to plant, but again...it's not my home anymore and there was no one to ask.

Back to the front of the house.  The color of the shutters is the color that the trim on the gable above and the eaves used to be.  I think I liked that much better than this green...but again...it's not my home anymore.  My Daddy did plant all those plants along the front...

And this is Daddy's old hand plow or whatever you call it, which he cleverly made into a mailbox stand. I'm so glad they've left that there.

One last look at the front of the house...actually I'm glad no one was home. If they had invited me in I know I would have been disappointed. From what I could see through the front door window when I was knocking and knocking and knocking...the inside looks like the people are kind of, well, shall we politely say, "pack rats"?  Yes, I'm glad the outside still looks pretty nice,  except for the trees that need trimming...

Another look at the side yard and end of the "Carriage House".  This empty lot next to the house was where I had many a campout with friends and where we played games and parked the extra cars when there were lots of people there...Oh, the memories.

Campout with my friends Sue,  Carol and yours truly...

Okay, let's shift gears a bit.  You know we went to celebrate birthdays today with family, right? That was the whole reason for making this trip in the first place.  Well, we did do exactly that, and had such a great time.

Here's our whole gang at the restaurant.  

Front row, me, our friend Paula, (the birthday girl!) my sister Doris

2nd row: my hubby's brother Billy, his wife Peggy and my sister's hubby Art.

Back row, my cousin's husband Pat, my cousin Becky, and my hubby John (the birthday boy).

Our niece Shannon was there with us also for lunch, but had to leave before the group picture was taken.

You may remember me mentioning Shannon before. She was in a serious car accident last year, and had to have a rod installed in her hip to repair the fractures.  Well, we hadn't been able to see her since her accident in person until today!   What a pleasure to see her radiant smile and hear her sharing her story with us.

She gave me permission to share this picture of the rod that is in her pelvis area, holding it all together.

She is going to be having surgery this summer to remove the rod, so hopefully she will be able to move forward with her scholarship for swimming at college in the fall. She is already swimming, but has limitations because of the rod.  They believe it should be healed enough to remove in July. So again, please keep Shannon in your thoughts and prayers. It's been a very difficult year for her.

You may remember me sharing a picture of me with my cousin Becky recently in the Tuesday 4: My Life Story post.  Well, here we are today...she and her husband Pat were down in Florida on vacation from Ohio, and were able to come join us today for the party!! 

Oh, here we were...about 61 years ago...yes, that's right! We haven't change much...LOL.

And here we are again with my sister Doris in the middle:

It was so great to be together again!!

Well, it's late and I need to get to bed. Tomorrow is another wonderful day...SONday!!  I am so thankful for the blessings of this day...for the memories from being "home again", even if only from the outside.  It made me appreciate how wonderful our home really was when we were growing up and so thankful for the dear people who once lived there.  I know our real home is in heaven, where Jesus is, and where my parents are waiting for us to join them someday.  Tomorrow in church we will be singing a song called "One Day Soon" and also in medley with "Soon and Very Soon, We are going to see the King".  We didn't record us singing that song, but here is a link to a audio version of it being demonstrated for you. I think you will enjoy the song as much as I do:

This video has the lyrics and music.  I can't  wait to sing it tomorrow.  And I can hardly wait for

"One day soon, we'll see Jesus!"

Amen.

and Good Night!