Just Visiting - Part 1

Re-capping our visit with Chris' family will probably take several posts, and with Emma's birthday party coming up on Saturday, they will be sparse. I'm gonna try, though.
Our actual travel was uneventful, which is really a nice thing to be able to say. I've had some harrowing travel in the last couple of years. We flew into Nashville (Really wish I'd been able to coordinate some face time with my Tennessee peeps. Ah well. Maybe next time?), because that's as close as we could get to Evansville, Indiana without Chris' wallet having a heart attack. His mom and dad and brother and his wife and the baby all came to get us in their church's van and we headed north.
We were so happy to meet our little nephew, Gavin Christopher (that's right - a namesake for my hubby! They were returning the favor, you see). He was hilarious and wonderful. Just at the age where little ones realize that they can have an effect on their environment and other people, and as far as they're concerned, they ought to be in charge of all of it.
Before we got all the way to our destination, we stopped in Kentucky to visit Chris' mom's family. His Mamaw (that's Grandma to you Yankees) has lived in the same house for 65 years. I really love the house - it's just my type. Mamaw is getting to that time of life when it's uncertain how much longer she'll live there, and since visits are far between, I had to take some pictures of it in all its crumbling-paint, slanted-floored glory.
Here are the kids and Gavin:

And here are a few things I spotted around the place that made my heart sing. I know it's not for everyone, but crackling paint, wavy old glass and washed-out curtains are just wonderful to me.





Sitting there in the living room, though, I became sharply aware of how time has passed. I watched my little nephew playing on the floor, in the middle of his extended family and remembered the same scene taking place when Andrew was little.

It seems incomprehensible to me that so much time has passed by me. My mom, maybe. My grandma, definitely. But me? Certainly not yet. I am sure that odd sense is so keen to Mamaw, having watched now three generations play on her living room floor, and teasing a hug and a kiss right out of each of them.
We had dinner at a restaurant in the tiny town of Central City and finished our drive to the house where Chris grew up. It was a long day, but an oh-so-satisfying one.