Kissing Cousins

I am blessed with a LARGE extended family and many of us live close enough to get together several times each year.  My mom had 10 siblings, so I have 23 first cousins just from that side of the family.  Then of course, the cousins married... had kids, the kids had kids, and the kids,kids had kids...you get the idea!  In this group of cousins we have three sets of twins.  On Sunday, we had the opportunity to have dinner with about 5o of the cousins and two sets of twins were able to make it.  My grandnieces will be 2 on August 23rd and the other twins shown in the picture (the boy and girl behind Ella and Mattie), turned 7 on Monday.  Their grandmother, my aunt Elizabeth, is also in the picture along with my niece and nephew, parents of the grandniece twins.  The warmth and love in that room was just overwhelming and knowing that I could count on each of them as lifelong friends is a blessing indeed!  And the memories we share...PRICELESS!  The memories we continue to make, one dinner at a time...REMARKABLE!

Low Country Boil

A favorite summer meal at my house is a "Low Country Boil" with shrimp or crab legs.  It's quick, easy and cooks in one pot!   Clean up is a breeze with just one pot to clean and clearing the table requires wadding everything up into one big newspaper ball.  After an afternoon around the pool, there is "nothin" finer-in all of Carolina, than a "Low Country Boil" at the Carson house.  This is a picture of the recent "Crab Leg Boil" with my son Ben (the Methodist Minister) and his beautiful wife Jenny.  They were home for the weekend to attend Ben's 10 year reunion with his high school class of 1999 and it was such a delight having them home but an added blessing was having so many of his high school buddies stopping by to visit too.  It's hard to believe that I'm old enough to have a son that was attending a 10 year class reunion but as the years have passed, I've realized that each year continues to bring rich blessings from God and that the future will be the same with so much to look forward too.  A "Low Country Boil," family time around the table, visits from long time friends...a blessing indeed!

Celebrations

I haven't blogged in so long that I had to update my profile.  It has been a busy several months but I have been blessed in so many ways.  The picture above is from a fantastic July 4th celebration with friends that live on a beautiful lake nearby.  They also had a cake to celebrate my birthday which was the day before the 4th.  It had those fun trick  candles on it that made it impossible to blow out and they even sang Happy Birthday to this aging 57 year old.    It was a pleasant surprise, a great evening, and a blessing indeed!

Here are a few updates:  a great anniversary- now married 34 years, the twins are so much fun and will celebrate their 2nd birthday on Aug. 23rd,  my kids are busy and happy, I just returned from a fantastic vacation in Chicago with hubby,  we head to Savannah, GA this weekend for a wedding celebration,  I've hired a new director for the preschool I founded 24 years ago and this has been very time consuming but rewarding, and I am continually blessed with the fruits of my labor from my vegetable and flower garden.   Please forgive me for the lack of blogging.  I will try to do better but I must confess... I do enjoy face book and I spend WAY to much time on it.  Find me, if you haven't already, Nancy Goforth Carson.