Friday, December 5, 2008

An unexpected gift

I have been blessed with many friends throughout my life. Some are around for a short time and then I don't see them anymore, and there are those that have been around for most of my life and will always be. But no matter cause with most of my friends we are able to pick up right where we left off weather it has been 2 days or 20 years, the friendship never dies.

Before we left for Oklahoma I was reading Mrs. Mom Wests' blog and there was a picture of a friend of mine from Oklahoma that I had not seen for 16 (thats right SIXTEEN) years. This friend was in a terrible car accident about a year ago and in that accident her back was broken. I had been pretty distressed about it at the time, but had heard that she had recovered for the most part. Anyway, I saw this picture of her and thought how wonderful it would be to get to see her again.

The Saturday before Thanksgiving we were in Parkland at a little pizza party at Lora Jacksons (one of those life long friends), and there were many, many people there. We hadn't been there long at all when this friend (Charlotte) walked in the door. We must have hugged each other for five minutes straight!! I was so happy to see her again. She had brought her childern up from Purcell for the evening, kind of a spur of the moment thing. I really feel that the Lord just put it in her mind to be there, as a special gift to me. We had such a wonderful enjoyable evening. I have pictures but left my camera at the church the other day. I'll try to post them later. Sometimes the very best gifts are those that are unplanned and completely unexpected.

In addition to that we were able to spend the first part of Thanksgiving week with Evan & Sarah as they were in Oklahoma the same week we were. What a great time we had. Also a very unexpected gift. The lady at a convinence store thought Alan was Evans dad. I don't know if he will ever live that one down. Sarah took to calling us Nanny & Poppa McCracken. Just cracked me up!!

We had a super great time at my sisters house for Thanksgiving. Tons of yummy food, and my sis had invited a family over that had no relatives in the area. They are from Kentucky and could not drive back for Thanksgiving. They were a really nice family. Our family has an ornament exchange after dinner and it was quite fun this year, with all the ornament stealing and hiding. My sisters oldest son Alan Wayne is engaged to get married to his highschool sweetheart. She is a lovely lady and fits in quite well with our family.

Friday after TG my sister Cindy and I spent a lot of time shopping together. It was a bunch of fun. Saturday we started home and drove straight through. Went to church at home Sunday and had a great meeting. Bro. Richard & Sis. Krista were here. As were Gale & her family. We had such a great meeting. But I'll let Neena tell you all about that.

So our lives have been crazy busy lately. That time of year I suppose. Just found out this morning that my Uncle Russ & Aunt Priscilla will be here tomorrow. It will be nice to see them again. If I don't post again for a while its because of all this busyness.

10 comments:

michelle said...

Sounds like you had avery good Thanksgiving .Hope you have a good visit with your Aunt and Uncle ,I guess he must be feeling alot better to be taking a trip.

Aunt Peetza said...

glad you had a good thanksgiving its one of my favorite holiday cause all the family gets together :)

Sabriena said...

Oh, thank you so very, very much. LOL. Lets see what I can remember after ALL THIS TIME!!! LOL. It's really nice that you had such a wonderful time. We did, too. It was nice to see you, even if not for very long. Keep posting.

Sabriena said...

P.S. Enjoy Bro. Russel & Sis. Priscilla!

Mrs. Mom said...

JoAnn, what a very special gift and how wonderful for you! Your Thanksgiving vacation sounds like it was full of little blessings with lots of friends and family.

Anonymous said...

You sure you want to hear from this old fogey?

Sis. Lori P. said...

Wow, you got to see so many wonderful people on your trip. I'd love to hear more about your Thanksgiving ornament exchange too! One of our sons, Bro. Russell Pelkey, lives out there in OKC now. He goes to the Choctaw church most of the time. Maybe you can look him up next time you are in town?

JoAnn said...

Aunt Deanna,

Yes! Yes! Absolutely!

Sylvia said...

It is so nice to see old friends. I am glad you were able to see so many. I love Thanksgiving. It was always my dads favorite holiday. This year it was just our family and we had the stomach virus the whole weekend. I wish I could see Bro. Russel and Sis. Priscilla.

Skylene said...

Glad you had a great Thanksgiving!