The Weekend in Review: Birthday Celebration continued and MORE

 This was quite a busy, but wonderful weekend. We continued the celebration of my hubby's 75th birthday on Saturday with much of our extended family here at our home for the day. 

Here's just a few random pictures taken throughout the day.  Below we were gathering for the blessing before the meal. That is a horrible picture of me, but it is what it is...my son said I reminded him of Grandma...I said, "You mean my mother?".  He said, "No, I mean YOUR Grandma".  I wasn't sure whether to throw something or be honored. Yeah, the curly perm is a bit much, but it's loosening up. And yes, I do take after my Grandma...but still...he only remembers her when she was already in her 80's....hmmm....Oh well...time marches on...

Here's the son who said that...gotta love him.  

And here's #3 son visiting with his uncles and swapping stories...

We had some wonderful food, thanks to the great cooks in the family who all contributed wonderful dishes to share...

A pre-dinner kitchen photo...getting things ready...Always good to have helpers in the kitchen...

After we ate our sumptuous dinner it was time for the birthday party.  Hubby and his brother and our niece and nephew waiting for cake and ice cream...

We are singing Happy Birthday to the birthday boy...

And then he opened up some great gifts...Actually he did get some nice gifts, but these next pictures are of some of the more fun gifts: 

Aren't all guys perpetually "7th graders for life?". I mean, do they EVER grow up???

My hubby collects ink pens. My sister seems to always find the most unique pens. This one is a cow.

And for some reason she also thought he'd love this "squish-mallow" honeybee pillow.  Actually, he did love it, and so do I. I want one for myself now. It's VERY soft and "squishy". LOL.

Our family does know how to have fun.

Our sweet daughter in love made this delicious banana pudding because she knew it was my hubby's favorite dessert! It was scrumptious.

Funny, here's the picture my sister was taking on her phone camera in the picture above:

I love it when family just sits around the table and continues to visit.  Here's our niece and nephew cutting up.  We were so pleased they both came to the party. 

But trying to get a decent picture of one of them smiling sometimes takes some cajoling and tickling...

And you just never know what you might get...

Again, you gotta love them...

Oh, and of course Lily Grace had to get in on the act...She was so happy to see her cousin Shannon...and we all decided the resemblance is amazing...

Many of you may remember a couple of years ago I requested prayer for our niece Shannon after she had a serious car accident that almost crippled her. But she has recovered beautifully and is now in college and doing very well. God certainly has answered our prayers in many ways.  Thank you for your prayers for her back then. Of course our young people today could always use our prayers...the world is a very different place than when we were young and in college...

So all in all hubby's birthday celebration, which took several days to accomplish, (Click HERE for a previous post) was a great success.  But the celebration wasn't really over on Saturday.

On Sunday we did something a bit out of the ordinary for us on a Sunday.  Our son has wanted to take his Dad to a special place for a special event, which happened to take place on Sunday, today. And so we made arrangements for the Pastor to teach the Adult Sunday School class in place of my hubby this morning so that we could be 'excused' from our responsibilities at church for the day.

Where our son wanted to take us  (yes, I got to go too, along with DIL Rose), was to the 

159th Anniversary Reenactment of the Battle of Olustee, a Civil War battle that took place here in Florida on February 20, 1864, in Olustee, Florida. You can click on that link above for more information about the battle and the battlefield,  etc.  The location is about an hour's drive north of where we live, so we took off early this morning to get there in time for the afternoon battle.  It was quite interesting and fascinating.  I took a lot of pictures, as you can imagine I would, and so I will share a "few" of them here for you so you can appreciate where we were today.  We did a LOT of walking, but thankfully it was a beautiful day weather-wise and really it couldn't have been more perfect.  So here we go:

Here's yours truly and hubby, with our chairs and backpack and hat, all of which we had to carry with us for quite a distance to get to the battlefield.  At this point we were actually sitting down for some lunch before the battle began.

Here's Rose and Benton below:

After lunch we walked through the woods and past the battle camps of the Confederates on one side of the woods and the Union soldiers were on the other side...

Soldiers getting ready for battle, and yes, that cannon was used frequently when the battle began, and trust me, it was very LOUD!

Of course I enjoyed seeing so many people in "period dress" for the event...that was fascinating.

Once the battle began things got very noisy.  Of course, they could not reenact the complete battle, but some of the main skirmishes of the day.  

I just loved this little drummer boy.

"The Battle ended at dusk when Union troops retreated in defeat and 2,807 men lay dead or wounded.  Just fourteen months later the war ended with the surrender of the Confederate Army."

This was a great event to complete my hubby's 75th birthday celebration, and we were so happy our kids suggested it and made it happen.  It was worth the trip (and all the walking) to make this happen.

P.S. In response to a comment regarding how the original soldiers who fought in the Civil War might feel about these re-enactments that take place today, this is what I said:

"I think they would be happy to know that we honor their memory and the sacrifices they made to help our country obtain true freedom from slavery and all its ills. Our history needs to be remembered so that we don't end up reliving it for real. Our nation is becoming very divided once again and we would be wise to remember what it cost our ancestors to obtain our freedom before it's too late. At least that's how I look at it."

Now I am very tired and ready for bed, but I just wanted to share all of this with you while it is still fresh on my mind.

Thank you for coming along with me on this little journey.

I hope you enjoyed "the ride."

So now I will say good night.

I know this wasn't Gettysburg, but I thought this a good time to re-read that wonderful speech given by Abraham Lincoln on that day in history:

Gettysburg Address

Delivered at Gettysburg, Pa.

Nov. 19th 1863.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. “But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Abraham Lincoln