Monday, August 8, 2016

Friends and Family--Oklahoma's Natural Wonders

One of our priorities for this month-long stay in Oklahoma was seeing the state's best natural wonders--our many friends and family that live here. We've done a pretty good job of seeing as many as possible. We spent time with both of Denisa's sisters in the Oklahoma City area, and we were blessed that they planned activities so we got to see all of their children and grandchildren. We finally remembered to take some pictures of us enjoying our relatives.

If you know Denisa, you wouldn't be surprised that most of the pictures are of our younger relatives. She has always been crazy about all our nieces and nephews, and now she has more time to be even more crazy about the next generation--our great nieces and nephews. It has been a while since she's been in a picture sporting "rabbit ears".

We also went to our first-ever swim recital--where we got to see all the new swimming skills that the children had learned at their lessons this summer.

It was nice to get to spend time with our son Blake too. This is a picture of an engineer showing three future engineers how to maneuver a metal ball through the obstacles of this game. This game was a favorite of our two sons, and it has been passed on to the next generation now.

Denisa's sisters were both school teachers, so they have fun and educational entertainment for their grandchildren. If you've ever read the children's book, "The Hungry Caterpillar" you will recognize that Camryn is wearing the caterpillar puppet on her arm. She is "eating" all the types of food mentioned in the book that Grandma Connie is handing her as Aunt Denisa reads the book aloud.

We also enjoyed spending some time in downtown Edmond, Oklahoma. They have outdoor sculptures all along the main shopping areas and streets. Boulevard is one of the town's main thoroughfares, but one section has been renamed "Boulevart." This was one of our favorites sculptures, entitled, "Come Unto Me."

These two sculptures had interesting names. The one of the left was "Country Chic" and the pair on the right was "Ham and Eggs."

Denisa and her sister Connie spent some of their time together quilting a bedspread. Their grandmother would be proud to see that they are enjoying the same things that she did all her life.

We must be getting old, because another of our activities was putting together puzzles. This one was a challenge, but we got it finished. We were better at hooking some of these states together because we have driven to many of them.

We enjoyed a visit to Weatherford, where we lived for many years before we retired. We appreciate friends that still welcome us home! We got to spend a night, and had a delicious meal--thanks to Patti and her family. Then we had a full day of appointments with our optometrist, dentist, and most important--hair stylist. We got a good bill of health from the doctors and good haircuts, so it was a very successful day! The only thing wrong with the day is that we didn't have enough time to see many of our friends still working at the Southwestern Oklahoma State University. We made another trip to Weatherford on a Sunday morning so we could see as many church friends as possible. Again, we were blessed with a delicious meal and more visiting with friends after church. As we were leaving town, we realized that we had forgotten to take pictures of all our time in Weatherford.

After visiting some of our youngest relatives, we also made side trips to visit some of our oldest relatives. We have pictorial proof that Denisa came from a good gene pool for living a long life. Pictured below is her Mother's sister, Aunt Lucille, who will celebrate her 100th birthday next month.

Another day we visited Denisa's Father's sister, Aunt Virginia. She is a very lively 97 years old. She was showing us the latest quilt blocks she is sewing. She figured out the pattern to replicate a quilt that her grandmother had brought over when she immigrated from Europe in the 1800's.

We still have a special birthday celebration coming soon, and we are looking forward to seeing all of Mark's family there. In the meantime, we have been blessed by getting to see many of our friends and family during our stay in Oklahoma. This state isn't known for its national parks or scenic beauty, but it is called home by some of the nicest people in the world. It will always be one of our favorite states to visit because of all of these natural wonders.

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