A Very Special Sunday

We arrived in Tallahassee on Saturday in time to meet up with Papa for shopping at Bass Pro Shops, and help Mema with dinner when we got to the house.  Grammy and Drew arrived Saturday evening also and spent the night at Mema and Papa's house so we could all be together for Cat's big event the next day.

On Sunday we went to church and loved seeing friends who have known us literally our entire lives.  It was so great to be there and see the faces of so many people we care about.  We went right from church to Mema and Papa's house, took a few pictures, then gathered inside for Cat's Patriarchal Blessing.  Cat had been preparing for weeks, reading about and talking about Patriarchal Blessings, and she's absolutely mature enough and testimony-ready, so we were so happy to be able to do this during our trip.  Papa was so sweet performing the blessing and we loved having Grammy and Drew there to be a part of this beautiful experience as well.

  

After the blessing, Grammy and Drew drove back to SC and the rest of us got into go-mode.  We loaded up the cars and headed to Mema and Papa's condo in the tiny town of St. James so we could spend a couple of days at the coast.  We enjoyed our evening there, with Eliza painting, Jack reading Wings of Fire out loud, playing Reverse Charades, and enjoying nature, both the scenery and the animal life.

  

We hung out on that pier for a while, spotting sting rays, fish, and crabs in the water, and just enjoying a beautiful evening.  Then just as we finally started walking back to the condo for the night, Jack's shoe slipped off and went right into the water.  And he was not happy.  We watched it for a minute, and considered our options.  Walking out to get it wasn't a good option because the mud was so thick it would make it nearly impossible.  We didn't have a kayak to use.  There was a fisherman at the end of the pier who we'd chatted with earlier, and we finally asked if we could use one of his poles to try to snag the shoe.  Ben made several casts, and the fisherman made several casts, and between them they bumped and even hooked the shoe, but couldn't reel it in.  We spent so much time trying to retrieve Jack's shoe using this method that when we finally gave up, the tide had gone way out, and we could literally walk out to the shoe.  Luckily, Papa had some wellies so Ben was able to get through the mud to the shoe.  He enjoyed looking at the fish while he was out there and even rescuing a little one from becoming a pelican's dinner.  And Jack was so relieved to have two shoes again.

Cat had fun taking cool pictures.  She took a few of the pics above, but I wanted to point out these fun ones specifically:

(The soccer socks tan makes me smile.)