After the whirlwind of shopping and dining, I was especially looking forward to seeing my amazing brother and meeting his fiancee for the first time. After flying through the night, they arrived Wednesday morning at 6am. I deployed my amazing hubby (who happens to be a morning person!) to pick them up, and I enjoyed my beauty rest until the luxurious hour of 7:45. After breakfast and depositing my pets to their respective boarding locations, We packed six adults into our new-ish SUV and began the six-hour trek to Macclenny. It's just a dot on the map, but a wonderful and special place!
Jenna expressed her semi-horror at her appearance after a 24-hour period without sleeping, but she definitely walked off the plane looking much better than I would have. :) Thankfully they volunteered to sit in that awkward third row seating. I'm pretty sure that Brad is high on life and love in this picture.
After our arrival in North Florida, we spent the next couple of days enjoying each others' company. We drove down to St. Augustine to see the famous fort, and went shopping at the St. Augustine Prime Outlets. This is where I found some great deals! I got a $98 dress for $18 and found my favorite tank tops (normally $30.50) for $7. Awesome. With reckless abandon for the limited space in our vehicle, Rich and I "saved" nearly $300 and spent under $100 for a PILE of clothes and shoes!
The fort at St. Augustine.
After shopping and cooking for what seemed like weeks, (really just 2 days) we had Brad and Jenna's engagement party/family reunion. Jenna impressed us all by getting everyone's name correct (and that is a LOT of names...and still not even close to all of our relatives!). We had pulled pork, rotisserie chicken, fried chicken, ham, baked beans, potato salad, macaroni salad, green salad, mac-n-cheese, deviled eggs, rolls, and multiple desserts from chocolate delight to banana split cake. Since you never know how many people will show up to these family get-togethers, I think we could have easily fed 100. We had so much food leftover...thankfully we parceled it out to some local sick families and a homeless shelter...lol. My Mom sure knows how to cook!
Combs family
Hoover family
Lyons family
Milton Family
Our Nana
Yarbrough family
My family :)
Zachary family
We have been blessed with such great relatives. My family can get together and pick up like we just saw each other yesterday. We were missing quite a few but had such a great time with the ones we did get to see!
On Sunday, we raced to beat the small-town-after-church traffic jam that is inevitable in Macclenny. We went to Pier 6, where I have been eating Southern Seafood since I was a kid. I'm pretty sure I will have to put in 100 hours of yoga to undo the damage I did that day.... :) We offered to order up frog legs and gator tail for Jenna, but she wasn't feelin' it. :)
Fried Gator Tail... $6.59
Frog Legs... $10.99. Frogs are slimy 'n quick, 'n harder to find...so they cost more than gator tail. Haha!
Blacked fish, lima beans, cheese grits, and the best hushpuppies anywhere.
It was also our cousin Layton's 37th birthday on Sunday. He has spent about 35 of those years in a body that won't be perfect until we all get to heaven. He is a special part of our family and he loved all the attention he got for his birthday! He had big smiles all around as we sang happy birthday to him and Mom "helped" him blow out his candles. I wish I had gotten a better picture but I was sitting so far away! We had 16 people at one table....typical for our family!
There's nothing like the beauty and charm of the South! The kids in our family have always loved our Macclenny roots, and my husband has fallen in love with the sleepy little town, too. It's dry on Sundays (although my cousin Jana was quick to point out that you can always get moonshine in the swamp!), there's a traffic jam around 12:15 every Sunday, and it takes an hour to pick up two things at Wal-Mart because you have to stop in every aisle to talk to someone you know. We have the best extended family anyone could ask for!
Yes, there is a part 3 of this blog series... :) next post!
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