Lucy's First Birthday

LBeau and I traveled to Harrison, Arkansas, this past weekend to celebrate Lucy's first birthday with Lucy, Ben and Claire and Claire's family.  Lucy turned one on Friday, but we saved the party for Saturday, which was also Claire's brother Adam's 19th birthday.

Claire spent Saturday morning making birthday cakes—a pistachio cake for the adults, a banana "smash" cake for Lucy and a brownie cake for Adam.

Claire's sister Caroline helped Claire choose photos from each month of Lucy's first year.  These were mounted and hung on the dining room chandelier.

After lunch it was time to celebrate.  Lucy briefly donned the Party Princess hat.

But Adam absolutely refused to wear it.

Lucy got lots of cute clothes, including these cool new shoes.

But the most fun was eating the "smash" cake…

…and sitting in her brand new chair.

You're Not Getting Any Younger

I've had lots of reminders lately that time is marching on.  The first came back in January when I visited the orthopedic surgeon to have my sutures removed.  When I asked Greg, the physician's assistant, about the repair of the meniscus tear that they had found, he remarked, "Oh at your age we don't repair them; we just clean them up."

I looked at my friend Glenda and said, "Well I guess I'm just too old to fix."

Shortly after that, I began to correspond via email with a cousin in Virginia who is updating the Belin family tree.  He needed some help filling in the gaps.  My maternal grandmother, Mary Belle Belin Reynolds, grew up in Warren, Arkansas, and is shown below with her siblings.

When I started working on information for my part of the family, I realized that since his last update we've added 15 members of a new generation to the line.  This is Ty.  Born in January, he's number 14.  Later in January Marion, named for my mother, arrived, and number 16 is already on the way.

As if that was not enough hint that I'm not as young as I used to be, my friend Danny began posting pictures on Facebook of our hometown, Camden, Arkansas.   This photo of the Tastee-Freez prompted a lengthy discussion of our Friday and Saturday night routine—circle the Tastee-Freez and the Duck Inn, and head back to Teen Town for more dancing to those 1960's 45's.

Meanwhile, Roy, our class president, circulated one of those email quizzes to see how much we remembered.  You know, questions like "What builds strong bodies 12 ways?"  I got a perfect score.

That prompted Jack to post some pictures from a 1958 Christmas dance.  We were 12 years old and in seventh grade, that awkward age where most of the girls are taller than the boys.  I was not one of them—awkward, yes (my mother had blessed me with an awful home perm), but taller, no.

Joy and Jack (dancing), and Nancy (seated with the corsage) were our hosts.  The dance was held at the Supervisor's Club, which was also the venue for our 45th class reunion several years ago.

So yes, I'm getting older, but it surely is fun to look back and remember the good times.  I'm already looking forward to more good times to come.

Valentine Cuties!!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone.  In honor of this day that honors love, I thought I'd share this family photo of my brother Tommy and my cousins Mary Lynn and Ruth Ann.

This picture was made sometime in the mid 1950's by Ben Bracken, who was the photographer (the only professional photographer, in fact) in Camden, Arkansas.  As I recall, it was for some kind of feature article that was published in the Camden News.

I've spent a lot of time lately looking at old photos from my hometown, thanks to my friend Danny.  More on that later as I try to get inspired to start blogging more frequently again.

Meanwhile, hope you get flowers or a heart-shaped box of chocolate candy or at least a card from your sweetie.