One of his best weekends.

Several months ago I attempted to set up a get together with my kids. At first it did not look as if it was going to happen. The finally everything started to fall into place. The weekend of December 10- 12, 2010 will go down as one of my best weekends of all time.

OK, you are asking what happened that made is so memorable! Absolutely nothing and everything happened to make it that way. How does that work out? Well, you put together a group of people, family, and just let things happen and go from there. There was talking, eating, napping, playing, children crying, laughing and you name it happening. All these and so much more happened making this a remarkably memorable weekend.

The last time I was able to be with my sons and daughter was when my Father passed away back in March of 2008. It had been at my oldest son Tim's wedding several years prior to that when we were last together. With those times not being the best at really getting together you can saw we were long overdue for quality time together.

I was able to get the use of a cabin in North Georgia and getting together with my Daughter-in-law we set up a weekend. Calls were made and discussions took place and it was all set up. Finally we were going to all get together. My son Tim with Andy (my 5 year old grandson), my son Cody and Bobbie Gene with their son Jayden (2 plus year old grandson), and Karri my daughter, with her boyfriend Kevin, all made plans to attend. The weekend was upon us and on Friday December 10Th the amazing weekend started.

Tim and I arrived first with Tim becoming the fire builder. He started and maintained the fireplace and the fire pit out side that we all enjoyed. I started to decorate the place for Christmas waiting for my daughter to get there so she could help put a woman's touch to the decorations. She arrived with Kevin around 5pm and together we finished decorating the place. I was so glad to have her help as she definitely made a difference. Dinner was at David's Pizza Place. For those of you who are not aware of this place it is my own home made pizza. I get all the ingredients together and hand toss some dough into the pizza pie and we load them up with whatever we want on it. My favorites are cheese, pepperoni, onions, green peppers and mushrooms. We also made one with just pepperoni and cheese for Karri. All evening we sat talking, enjoying the scenery and warming up to the fire waiting on Cody, Bobbie Gene and Jayden to arrive. They Finally got in around 10:30 that evening. Needless to say we stayed up a little later than normal but we enjoyed every minute.

Morning came and it was coffee time. The smell of coffee brewing and sitting down with Andy watching morning cartoons. You just can not get a time any better than that. As the others started to wake I put on some bacon, maple cured, and the aroma filled the cabin encouraging the others to get up and out of bed. Then I started the eggs, scrambled with onions, green peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes and fresh garlic. Yum!!! Of course I made some generic boring scrambled eggs as well. Keeping with the topic of food, Kevin volunteered his chili for dinner that evening. It was one of the best that I have had and of course I now have the recipe and am looking forward to trying my hand at it as well. One part of the weekend that made it special was everyone sitting down and eating together. Whether it was breakfast or dinner we sat and enjoyed the time talking about whatever came to mind.

I was able to take my two daughters out to Blue Ridge, GA on Saturday. We walked up and down the main street checking out all the specialty stores and just having a great time. Even though it was cold and my back started hurting it was another of the enjoyable times of the weekend. Cody and I were able to go back in the afternoon and spend some quality time walking the stores as well. Tim and I were able to drive together from Atlanta to the cabin and we went 4 wheeling together so I had my quality time with him as well. I have to admit though the best time was sitting on the couch with Andy watching cartoons. He snuggles up close resting next to me and when he wants my attention goes, "Hey Papa Wizz...." Seems like I will never get rid of that Wizz nickname. I have had it since high school. Though Jayden and I did not sit much or hang out we did get to have some fun together. He is learning who his Papa Wizz is and over the weekend warmed up to me more and more. Cody quickly became the king of the Foosball table beating everyone in sight. It did not matter who he was teamed with or who he played he was winning. Well, that was until Tim and I teamed up and beat him and Kevin two games to none. Relaxing, playing games, riding 4 wheelers, eating, warming to the fire, sitting in the hot tub, no matter what we did we were able to get close having a great time.

An interesting thing happened Saturday afternoon while we were hanging out. Karri was outside on the porch visiting, I was sitting on the couch, others were just doing whatever. My cell phone rang and up popped Karri's picture. I did not pay attention to the number, just the picture and answered with "What you doing Karebear?" Well to my surprise it was not my Karebear. If I had looked closer to the actual number I would have seen it was her Mom's number. I have that under Karri because she is often over there and I will have to call there to talk to here. Anyways, Teresa was on the line and she told me how glad she was that all of us were together having a great time. As we talked she mentioned that it was really hard on her knowing that Andy was only 5 hours away and that she was not going to be able to see him. It has also been over a year since she had seen him and was going to be longer still. I think you may know where this is going so I will go ahead and tell you. I invited her to come on down to see all of them together. She pretty much immediately left and drove down arriving after midnight. There is a time in your life when no matter what has happened or what your history is with someone you do have to get along. What better time than Christmas!!!

All day Sunday was so relaxing and enjoyable, well for the most part. We had breakfast together, I fixed more bacon and Karri made French toast with cinnamon. One of those things we did when she was smaller and we will always remember doing together. There were times when we were all in the same area and times when we spread out in different areas of the cabin. It did not matter as we went around visiting, sharing and just being together. It was cold out and after having rained some it started to sleet. Then the snow began to fall. Not much snow but enough to make for an interesting time later in the day. When you combine below freezing temperatures with rain and put snow on top you get some very slippery roads. As most everyone needed to get back to their respected homes on Monday the decision was made to leave Sunday evening. Tim and I were going to be the last to leave. The others packed up, good-byes were said and off they went. About 15 minutes later Tim got a call from Cody and, as we were up on a mountain, with winding up and down roads, that were now ice covered, you can guess what happened. Two of the cars could not make it up one of the inclines. So Tim and I drove to find them and after a short time decided to get everyone back to the cabin, believing we were going to have to stay the night. Good thing we had food still. After some time I remembered that there was a back way down the mountain. Tim and I got out the four wheelers and decided to drive it and see what it looked like. Luckily this back way was dirt or gravel road so we all made the choice to try and drive out that way. We did make it to the highway safely and started our trek home. All the excitement was not over with though. Teresa's van developed a cracked radiator so her and Cody had to stop for the night near the Tennessee border. Karri and Kevin continued on but it took them over 12 hours to make the 5 hour drive as the snow was worse up in Kentucky making for slow driving conditions. Cody and Teresa eventually got her van to a shop to be fixed and they did make it back to Kentucky. Tim and I did not have any problems making it back to Atlanta but Tim decided to get just a few hours sleep and take off at 2am to head back to Texas.

The important thing though with all this "difficulty", it did not dampen the spirit of the weekend. Nothing was able to take away the joy we all shared from spending time together. My prayer for everyone this Christmas season is that you will have the best time you can with your families. Remembering of course that Jesus is the reason for the season and sharing the love He has for us with others is what we should always be willing to do.