Aunt Marilyn (Mom's sister) and Uncle Gene came down for Aunt Joan's funeral and wake. It is always good to see them. Aunt Marilyn used to come to our Graham reunions for years, so she knew many of the people there. Of course, by the time the morning was over, she knew everyone there. Reminds me of my hubby! (And yes, the Graham reunion is my Dad's side of the family.)
We buried Aunt Joan in a lovely memorial garden with the most beautiful landscape I have seen in a cemetary. The flowers were all beautiful, even those that weren't yet in bloom (the sedum especially). The cemetary was only a mile up the road from the funeral home. Afterwards we drove a few miles down the road to the old 2-room school house (shown in picture above) on Broomes Island. My uncles and cousins all attended this school. Now the building is used for civic functions. It is a stone's throw from Uncle Norm's waterfront home.

I asked my cousin, Richard, where the principal's office was. He just laughed (hee, hee ~ I had heard all morning about Richard's reputation).

(Added later: In the above picture, my brother Mike is walking toward the camera, and my brother Floyd is in the white shirt and black tie.) I am so glad they left the blackboards up in the classrooms. On the wall there is a large aerial photo of Broomes Island taken 25 years ago before the building boom (I didn't get a picture of it). Large tobacoo fields as far as the eye can see. Now there are homes on every 1-acre lot.
I found a few pictures from Texas that I'll share with you. Texans pride themselves on doing everything big. They are even proud of their big fly swatters. While we didn't see any flies on Padre Island, we did hear that the flies are big once you get inland.
This is the underside of a starfish Allen found one night.
This is the right side. Almost the color of a rattler! Our starfish up here in Maryland are orangy-red and smaller. After seeing a documentary about how rattlers like to swim (especially around the Florida Keys), I would think this was a snake!

We had an early morning today. Maggie, Anna and Ruthie left at 7 am to go babysit four children. They will have so much fun.

Yesterday we had a string of violent storms that lasted well into the night. Even church got canceled! This morning we walked around and we were surprised to find all our trees still standing.

Many blessings ~ Kathie