NC Trip, Part 2

We also got to spend some time with our cousins!  It was wonderful to see my grandparents with all of their great grandchildren.  Some of my greatest memories are with my grandparents and I am thankful that Koen and John Thomas have the privilege of spending time with all of their GREAT grandparents!  Grandparents are truly a blessing! There is something different about them that mommies and daddies just don't have :)

Cousins, Haley and Laryn, they were such big helpers!

Cereal with Mimi, one of the greatest women I know!

 The kids and adults enjoyed some intense corn hole competition!

John Thomas got some more loving in the swing with his cousins!

The great grandchildren had lots of fun hanging out after dinner!

Four generations

My cousin, Chris, and his daughter Laryn, and neice Haley

Kris and Koen with my grandparents

Koen absolutely loves my grandmother's dill pickles.  Each summer, for my entire life, my grandfather gets the garden ready in early spring and plants rows and rows of vegetables.  My Mimi spends hours sitting on a 5 gallon bucket picking them at just the right size for her famous dill pickles.  When I was little and would spend the night, she would tell me each night that if I woke up and couldn't find her not to be scared, that she would be in the garden picking the vegetables.  She would always bring everything back to the house and we would sit on the patio and she would show me how to carefully wash them with a small toothbrush to get all the dirt off after we did the "rough" wash.  After they were washed and dry, she would bring them into the house and would sit and cut just a small amount off the ends and pack them carefully into wide mouth mason jars with the dill she planted each summer.  I cannot imagine how many hours she has spent, tirelessly, making dill pickles.  She has been offered several times large amounts of money for her jars, but each time says there is no price for the time she spends, and gives them away without hesitation. She is always waiting with two jars of pickles for Koen and he eats almost the whole jar and then drinks the juice, he CANNOT get enough! He has even had several "care packages" of pickles mailed to him, along with blackberry jelly from my Aunt Libby that he and Kris love!

One of MANY pickles this boy put away on our trip!

Precious picture I will always treasure! 

I am so thankful to have my grandparents still with us, there is no doubt they played a huge part in the person I am and I cherish the many life lessons they instilled in me.  I can only hope to be half the woman my grandmother is!  Kris also is blessed to have all FOUR of his grandparents they, too, he would agree play a huge part in who he is as a husband, and father!

Love, 

Alisha