You Know I Like My Chicken Fried...

I've blogged on more than one occasion about my great-Aunt's house in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky.
And how my mom's side of the family loves a get together-- so we have reunions at least every other year. Most of our reunions are here-- in the backyard of my great-Aunt's house. We come from all over-- Ohio, Tennessee, South Carolina, other parts of Kentucky. We park on the grass.
We eat lots of fried chicken (thanks to my mom's cousin who owns a Lee's franchise). We eat lots of other food too. We laugh.

We sit on porch swings.

We rock babies on porch swings.
We quietly remember the one no longer with us who should be sitting right in the middle.

We blow bubbles.

We still find entertainment on the big tricycle.

We welcome back family that's been living in New Zealand for the past year.

We crowd onto that big ol' porch for a picture because goshdarnit that rain will NOT stop us from that big family photo.

And we still look like this after 8+ hours of fried food and cheesy food and chocolate-y food and rain showers and wet kids and sticky babies and messiness and conversations about everything and conversations about nothing.

We leave with a "Y'all come back now," plans for the next reunion (Myrtle Beach, next summer, that's the rumor anyway), and a renewed sense of what it is to be "family."

One generation melts smoothly into the next (I've been coming to this house for reunions since I was kid). The same stories are repeated and new ones are added. Sweet tea is consumed in mass quantities. All because over 8 decades ago, Great-Grandma Nellie gave birth to three beautiful girls (each 2 years apart) who turned into wonderful women who shared the value of family and who make the reunion possible each time.

(Nellie Meimann-- my great grandmother, with her three daughters circa late 1980s)

~Melody :-)