A Special Evening with a Great-Great-Aunt

One of my great aunts (and therefore the kids' great-great-aunt) is Sister Diane, a nun who currently lives in Kentucky.  Dad and Mom had been planning on bringing her down for a visit to their lake house for a while, and our family had the pleasure of spending an evening with them this past Monday.

Aunt Diane is one of the sisters of my late paternal grandmother, Grammy.  Grammy was the third of eleven children, and the oldest of the five girls in the family (Diane was the fourth oldest child in the family).  Grammy passed away about two months after Nathan was born, unfortunately before I was able to take Nathan to visit her.  Dad and Mom drove me and baby Nathan up to Washington DC for her funeral, right after Christmas in 2009, where we had a wonderful visit with all four of Grammy's sisters who had also made the trip for the funeral.  That was the last time we had seen each other.

Though Nathan was tired when we got to the lake house and wasn't feeling very social, Sarah thrilled all of us by running right to give Sister Diane a hug.  Sister Diane picked her up and Sarah exclaimed "I never met you before!!" with a big grin on her face.

We had a nice visit and then after dinner Nathan perked up quite a bit.  He challenged Pawpaw to a game of Go Fish, so Gran and I stayed downstairs to chat while everyone else headed upstairs to watch the action.  After a while our curiosity was piqued as there was lots of rowdy noise and laughter coming from the second floor.  We got up there to be greeted by this:

Pawpaw and Nathan in the middle of a rousing card tournament - I love that you can see how much fun they're having in this shot!  Sarah was also playing a game with Sister Diane of "throw the cat, run to retrieve it, then climb back into your lap".  (I love Pawpaw's expression in this picture as well!)  We all had a really fun time!

Also after dinner, Aunt Diane brought out presents she had thoughtfully gotten for us.  Brian and I got a set of cute ladybug mugs and both kids got a a treat bag.  The biggest hit with them was not the candy in their bags but the battery-powered Halloween candle!  The kids immediately switched them on and ran to the secret hiding place, where they could fully appreciate their beauty in the dark little room.  Then, of course, the special presents had to be displayed in the pictures we took before we headed home. 

Sarah's candle was so loved, in fact, that after bed that night Brian had to break out the super-glue to repair and reinforce Sarah's candle. 

We were all so happy about a wonderful evening to visit together!