Pecans, Grits & Satsumas - Alabama

We left bright and early (5:30am) on Friday morning and headed South with Grandpa & Grandma Bontrager to visit the Weber family (my husband's sister) in Alabama. The trip down could not have gone smoother. I packed an activity bag for each of the kids and plenty of snacks. They were pretty content most of the 13 hours except for the last one when their little bodies could not sit still for one more minute. We arrived at the Weber's with warm sunny skies, the smiling faces of our sweet nephew & niece and a fresh baked pecan pie...what a great beginning to great weekend spent with family. Most of our time was spent hanging out at Jason & Joyce's home relaxing, watching the cousins play together and catching up with each other. Kevin went with Jason on Saturday morning to deliver a load of soybeans in Mobile while the rest of us enjoyed pancakes & sausage made by Joyce. Later that day we picked up tons of pecans from their pecan trees and Joyce and I took a walk. The skies were clear and temperatures were in the mid 70s the entire time we were there.


What fun it was to spend the day with my sweet little niece Helen on her first birthday. She's such a happy baby and loves to get her picture taken, smiling from ear to ear every time.

On Sunday morning, the kids woke up bright and early since the time changed. I brought them in bed with us and Caedmon sang a sweet Happy Birthday song to his daddy. We went to Grace Fellowship Church in Atmore on Sunday and enjoyed a message by Jason's brother Conrad. We decided to take a family picture outside since it was so beautiful, but Mr. Caedmon decided to throw a fit and refused to cooperate so he had a talk with daddy out back by the satsuma tree.


That evening was the big birthday party for Owen and Helen. Jason's family attended as well. Lots of kids and lots of noise, but lots of FUN! Once again, Mr. Caedmon needed another reminder to get some control and that he was not the entertainment for the evening. Joyce made a Wheel of Fortune cake for Owen because he loves to watch all the letters on that show, and Helen had a cute little cupcake. On Monday the guys took the kids to a park while the ladies went shopping downtown Atmore at the Economy Shop. It's always a fun place to look for treasures when we are down there. I bought a pair of pants for Caedmon, a shirt for me and a pair of jeans for Kevin. We stayed up late again that night talking then got up at 4am the next morning to head back to Indiana. Caedmon wasn't so happy to come home, he said "maybe we can come back to Alabama next weekend". When we reached the Indiana border and said we were in Indiana, he said "I don't want to go to Indiana, I want to go back to Owen's house" and even as we turned on the road that we live on, he pointed behind him and said "I want to go back that way to Owen's house". Kaiya started wailing the last four miles of the trip.


Thanks, Jason & Joyce, for a great time!