Painting the Memories: FAMILY PICTURES

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

My mom's parents :)

This holiday was never passed over in my family, seeing as my mom's dad came from Ireland to Alabama. She mentioned earlier that she knew exactly where he would be later on, at Knights of Columbus (a Catholic men organization...he was a past "grand knight") in Anniston celebrating with some buddies. Every time we make a trip to Alabama to see my mom's family, we pass through Anniston so Mom can show us different places she remembers from growing up there. I enjoy hearing the stories about her and my uncle, her walking with her dad when he went in to work, and seeing all of the houses she grew up in. I wish I would have had a chance to meet her dad, but he passed away when Mom was 19. I would have loved to hear his Irish accent and be able to know what it was like to grow up in another country and then come to the US. Since I'm not able to though, Mom is always telling me and Cade stories about him and showing us things that she kept that remind her of him or things that he wrote in. Needless to say, my whole family is EXTREMELY proud of our Irish heritage :)

not to mention my mom, brother, and i all have names that relate to him, mom = ellen mary = his sister, patrick = both his and cade's first names, shelley = his last name...just thought i'd share that little part!

Now to change subjects to something completely unrelated...

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that for Weyman's (stepdad) birthday, we were taking family pictures. His oldest daughter came down with her family so there were quite a few of us. The lady who took the pictures was patient with us and she was pretty nice, so we were lucky! Here are some of the pictures...