Clint’s 20th Birthday June 14, 2010

I can’t believe that my baby boy is 20 years old!  How can that be?  Where did the time go?  I know they are supposed to grow up, but this year has been so full of changes…I don’t feel a minute older than I did 20 years ago!(My body tells me different, but just the same!)

We had the Razorback cake made for him this year.  Go Hogs! 

Big surprise here?  Mom’s doing all the work and the kids are watching?   We had a hamburger supper for Clint this year to celebrate.  Ever since Clint was in 7th grade, he’s always been out of town on his actual birthday.  Our church youth choir takes a yearly mission trip, and it’s ALWAYS during his birthday!  This year we actually got to have a party ON June 14th! 

We look VERY happy to be having a party, now don’t we?  ha ha!

 

That thing TASTED as good as it looked!

Bring on the loot!

No more teenagers in my house.  Wow, never thought I’d hear myself say those words!

It’s almost that time again!…

Just had to remind everyone that I am a Hog Fan through and through….(in case you didn’t know!)  lol  Football season is right around the corner!!!!!  WOOO PIG!!!

WICKED…the Broadway Show.

Last summer I saw the musical, Wicked, in Memphis.  It was so wonderful that I couldn’t wait to see it again!  A couple of months ago, Penny mentioned that she wanted to see it, so we got online and found out that it was going to be in Dallas in June.  We contacted a few of our other friends, and the trip was planned.  So to Dallas again for me!  Twice in two weeks!  I love it!

We had a great time!  Here we are at dinner before the show.  Sitting:  Me, and Penny Talley.  Standing:  Liz Bullock, Traci Rowland, and Donna Scroggins.  We get so tied up with our lives that don’t get a chance to visit with these girls!  This was a very fun trip.  Liz moved to Texarkana a couple of years ago, and Traci moved to Atlanta for a few months.  Chip and I go to early services, so I don’t get to see any of them anymore at church:  except Penny.  Our kids are all grown, so our days of Bible schools, youth choir, SOAR, and AWANA are long past.  I loved having a reason to reunite with everyone again!

We ate at Pappadeaux’s.  The food was incredible!  I ordered the Shrimp Montage…yummy!!!  Crab stuffed, humongous shrimp:  What of that is bad? (well, maybe my cholesterol after the shellfish overload!)

We had such a great time at dinner that we almost waited too late to leave for the show!  We took one more picture before leaving.  Love these girls!  My face hurt from laughing so much. 

Penny and I are ready for Wicked.  Someone I’m sure said something hilarious…look at that cheesy smile!

Here’s Traci, Liz, and Donna.  We had shopped at Sam Moon’s earlier that day, and Donna purchased a little handbag for the evening.  She couldn’t get the zipper to work on her “Son Yung Moon” purse….it was tooooo funny!  That’s what I’ll call Sam Moon from now on!

The set was breathtaking…we couldn’t make any pictures once the show started…

Liz’s brother-in-law called us “Cougars on the prowl…”  ha ha

 

Donna and I in our new WICKED shirts….my camera was so cold from the hotel room that morning that the lens fogged over!  Wish I had a clearer picture!

We had lunch in the mall in Frisco at The Cheesecake Factory.  Wow!  Good food and good times! 

Of course you can’t eat at The Cheesecake Factory without eating cheesecake!  We each ordered a different dessert and passed each plate around the table so we could all have a taste!  I’m not sure which was the best….?????  They were all mindboggling good!

I had a great time, girls!  I can’t wait until the next outing…where will we go next? 

Dallas or Bust!

Bitty and I were needing a quick trip to the big “D” to shop for our cruise.  We took off on a Thursday morning at 6 a.m., and arrived in Dallas on the run!  We shopped all day and made good progress.  We stayed at my cousin, Buck’s house in Rowlett.  He has a great home.  It’s beautiful!  We felt like we were staying in a 5 star hotel!  I stole a picture  or two of his house from his facebook….lol

This is his backyard…it’s like a little paradise back there! (The two girls laying by the pool are Lucy and Rose)  They are precious dogs!  Bitty and I fell in love with them.

We went out that night for dinner.  The cool restaurant was exactly what Bitty and I needed after a long day of power shopping!  Here’s Buck and I at dinner.  We had a fabulous time catching up with each other.

The next morning after breakfast, Bitty and I started our second day….we had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe.  It was a refreshing and fun atmosphere.

WE were SOOOOO tired after two days….BUT….we are ready for our cruise!  I love Dallas!  Thanks, Buck, for being such a wonderful host!

Sarah’s Graduation

My niece's graduation was great!  She has made us so proud!  She’ll be attending the University of the South in the fall.  She graduated with honors from El Dorado High School. 

Her class was HUGE!  It went by AMAZINGLY fast.  They were very well organized.

She’s there in the very center…

Getting her diploma:

Here’s the Weldon clan that attended..

 

Russ, Chuck, Sarah, and Beth.

The Cameron’s…

Way to go, Sarah!  We can’t wait to see what great things you do!

End of the School Year…

The other half of my teaching team for the past 3 years is Latrina Howell.  Well, she’s is now Latrina Brown!  We threw her a little shower at Elizabeth Tye’s home. She is an amazing teacher, and I can always hear her across the hall yelling, “WOOOO HOOOO!  You got it!”  She’s so encouraging, and her smile is infectious!  She LOVED her money tree that we gave her.  (Wish I could figure out how to grow one of these in my backyard!)

Here’s the 6th grade crew:  A GREAT bunch of teachers.  I love working with them, and we make a wonderful team.  Front Row:  Leslie Boyd, Latrina Brown, Pat Lawson.  Back Row:  Charlotte Foster, Me, Elizabeth Tye, Ariana King, Bonnie Flurry, Betty Muldrew, and Glo Williams.  Love these girls!

6th Grade Graduation

June 2nd was a long and bittersweet day.  I’m so sad that this school year is over!  The class I had was AMAZING!  Some of the sweetest personalities I’ve ever encountered in my 22 years of teaching.  Every year, on the last day of school, we host a graduation ceremony for the 6th grade students.  I cried so hard when these kiddos left me!  Here’s the group listening to our principal, Ethel King, give her speech before graduation.

The kids sang “We Are the World" as their class song.  It was so touching…they did such an awesome job!  We even had one student signing the song!

Here I am calling out each of my students and their accomplishments of the year.  I had a very smart bunch of kiddos!

We always have a morning ceremony, and the parents come check out their kids afterwards.  They deserve the rest of the day off!  (and so do we!) They’ve worked hard for seven years for this privilege.  Here I am saying my last goodbyes to them.

Here’s my class on graduation day before we went to the arena.  Isn’t that a good looking bunch?

Here’s some more pictures of my class throughout this past year:

Christmas Party day…

Our silly faces….(don’t think mine was too silly after the party! Pretty much is how I felt!)  ha ha  It was also “House Shoe Day.” 

Playing “Pass the Present”….too funny!  They loved it!

We had a parade before our State Testing…since we’re the FROG room…I painted all the kiddos a shirt!  This was our theme:

The back of the shirt:

We got our scores back on the last day of school….I am so proud of them!  I had VERY high expectations (I have the word pasted to my ceiling in my classroom to show them “HOW HIGH!”) :)  They exceeded them!  GO 6-11!  I’ll miss you terribly!  This next year will be so different for all of us;  we’re going to 7 period days, so I’ll have 5 different classes every day.  More kids to love! :)

Williams Family Reunion April 24th 2010

This weekend has been a lot of fun.  We’ve had a lot of walking down memory lane and catching up with relatives that we haven’t seen in quite some time.  This Williams clan all began on November 6, 1910, when a very young 18-year-old, Lewis Franklin Williams married an even younger 16-year-old, Alice Eudora Cheatham.  These two kids had their first son, George, in August of 1911.  (nine months)Sadly he did not live past his first day.  Their second son, Olen, was born in June of 1912.  They had twin girls, Christine and Clarine, born in July of 1916.  Ogran followed in May of 1918, making their little family “complete” with two boys and two girls…..or so they thought!  Alice was told she had a tumor in 1935…well….in January of 1936, that 13 pound tumor was my daddy, James Franklin Williams.  What a surprise!

Here’s a picture of the complete family.  I’m not sure of the year that this picture was made.

From left to right is Christine, Lewis, Olen, Ogran, Alice, Franklin, and Clarine.

I absolutely LOVE this picture.  This is the old home place that this wonderful family grew up in.

I learned this weekend that they lost the house years later in hard times because they could not pay the taxes on it.  Such a sad story for such a grand home with so many wonderful memories.  

I also was excited this weekend to get some copies of some other older pictures.  I love this picture of my daddy when he was little…such a cute little thing!

I was especially grateful to get this picture of daddy.  I have a copy of his journal that he wrote in before he passed away.  In that journal he tells of the little red wagon that he got for Christmas one year.  He taught his dog to ride in the wagon and would get his Red Rider BB gun (that Clint now has) and “go huntin!”  :)  This made it all a reality.  So special!

Ok, back to the Williams Reunion….the date was chosen because it was Grandpa Williams’ birthday weekend, April 25th.  For years and years the family gathered together on this particular weekend to celebrate his birthday.  It made sense that this be the weekend that we have our reunion.

Here’s a picture of Grandpa Williams with his birthday cake in 1955.  He would have been 118 years old this weekend.

 

This may sound a little like the scriptures with all of the “begets”….:)

Olen married Erma Lou Bryant and had three children:  Winston, J.D., and Margie.

Clarine married Guy Cheatham and had two children: Florine and Nell

Christine married Carl Peace and had four children: Carlyn, twins Ben and Len, and Lewis

Ogran married Mary Hendricks and had one daughter: Peggy…then married Marie Smith and had two children: L.O. and Shirley.

then last, but not least, Franklin married Irene and had two children:  Sylvia (yours truly) and Ann.

(Now…if you are reading this and there is ANYTHING that is wrong in this account…PLEASE let me know so I can make the corrections!)

Three of these grands have since passed away: Lewis, L.O., and Peggy.

All of our aunts and uncles are gone, except my mama, Irene Williams. She is the only living aunt.

The cousins got together this weekend to reminisce old times and make new memories.

We started off the weekend by gathering at my house Friday evening.  We had people traveling from many places: New Orleans,  Florida, Texas….everyone made the trip safely.

Here we are today:  Florine, Winston, Carlyn, Nell, Len, Ben, Shirley, Sylvia, and Ann.

We had lunch today at Bayou Bistro:

 

Ben and Barbara Peace

Buck Peace

Chuck Peace

Len and Karen Peace

Mashae, Cole, and Tiffany Peace

Ann Williams Jones

Nell and Harlon Duhon

Florine McKinney

Shirley Chapman

Nell and Winston Williams

James and Carlyn Hall

James Hall, Ann Jones, and Carlyn Hall

Irene Williams

Chip and Sylvia Weldon

Clint Weldon

Then we moved the party to my house where we could spread out and visit.  We spent a lot of time looking at old pictures.

Carlyn and Flo discuss our heritage.

 

 

Hanging outside….the weather couldn’t have been better!

Len and Ben’s wives:  Karen and Barbara

Clyde Smith and James Hall

 

Looking at more pictures.

 

Chuck and his daddy, Len.

 

Clint, Ben, Winston, and Clyde

 

Sylvia and Buck

 

Ann and Buck

 

Brady Carter (Tiff’s boyfriend) and Tiffany Peace

Taking a picture of Chuck taking a picture of me!

 

Clyde, Chip and Ben

Len and Carlyn

Karen, Buck and Ann

Florine gathered us all together outside for her “presentation.” 

Winston introduced Flo as the oldest cousin…"(he’s next in line!)

I think she told him to sit down….

Being from New Orleans, she is VERY proud of her precious Saints.  She and Nell made everyone a set of fleur de lei coasters to commemorate the reunion and so EVERYONE would remember that the Saints won the Super Bowl this year!  :) They are really nice coasters and they were handmade by Flo and Nell….makes them more special!

Clint, Karen, and Buck are laughing because when Buck got his coasters, he informed Flo that he was a Colts fan….she told him to give them back….he he

 

All day Saturday was Karen’s birthday, but it went by without anyone (except Buck) telling her happy birthday.  So sorry, Karen!  Happy Belated Birthday!

Clint gets the camera and starts taking random pictures at odd angles….come on, Clint!

Now the task of trying to get together a bunch of Williams descendants in a row…oldest to youngest, for a picture.  Not easy…why is Winston down on that end with me?  He KNOWS he’s supposed to be on the other end of the line!  :)  

everyone getting cameras ready…

 

discussing ages and placement…I know which end I go on! 

Still fussing over ages…

Where’s Ann?

There she is….

That’s better….

Florine

Nell, Harlon, and Florine

Nell and Winston

James and Carlyn

Ann, Irene, and Sylvia

Ann and Sylvia

Chip, Sylvia, Jessica, and Clint

Karen, Chuck, Cole, Len, Tiffany, Buck, and Mashae Peace

Ben and Barbara Peace

Tiffany, Chuck, Cole, and Mashae Peace

Chuck and Buck Peace

Chip, Sylvia, and Clint Weldon

  On Sunday morning…Grandpa Williams’ actual birthday, we gathered up one more time to say our goodbyes.  Promising that we would do this again in two years….

Our last meal at Dairy Queen before the last of the bunch hit the road….

I can’t begin to explain how much this weekend meant to me.  Since Daddy passed away thirteen years ago, we haven’t been able to get together.  Nell said something this morning that I can’t get out of my head…”every once in a while you need to get back with your people that are like you.  It’s helps you be grounded and remember where and “who” you came from.  It helps you remember who you are.”  I’ve missed that so much from this side of the family for a long time….but I got it back this weekend.  The only thing that would have made this weekend better for me is if my daddy could have been here too.  I really think he, his brothers and sisters, and our grandparents were smiling down on all of us this weekend.  Two more years may be too long….These are the people who helped build me.  I like being reminded of that.