Great Times

If you know me, you know that I am a member of a wonderful family. I am not just talking about my immediate family of Frank, Katie and Mattie. But my BIG family - my dad's side is fairly large and includes a huge extended family and my mom's side, well, that includes "everyone else".

That everyone else starts at 20 months old and goes up to 91 years. Now this is something we are all very proud of - five very vibrant and active generations. Last night, my grandmother, 91 year old Mattie B, wanted to go to the fair and take Mattie May. Because of aging knees, she has not been able to adventure out to the fair grounds for several years, that is way to much walking for her. So my mom arranged to borrow my great aunts wheel chair and off we went.

It is always an adventure to go anywhere with any member of my family, but Mattie B is all about the fun. She worries that someone is not having a good time and we all are worrying about having her out where she should not be.

It is amazing how many people know her. In every building someone would stop and talk to us. She would have us get all around so she could show everyone her five generations. This is great, but there is not a lot of room in some of the buildings between the displays. It didn't matter to her, she was showing off her family. I think she even got a little angry with us when we wouldn't interrupt the 6 o'clock news cast being broadcast from the round building! I really don't think Downing Bolls would have been very happy with that, but she wanted all of Abilene to know we were having fun at the fair.

Our short little trip turned into 3 1/3 hours of eating, visiting, eating, fun and, oh yeah, did I mention eating? We visited the petting zoo, looked at the photos and arts & crafts, spent quite awhile looking at the beautiful quilts, checked out all the cool stuff in the Display Building and Mattie B told the cotton man in Planet Agriculture how she picked cotton all her life. We ate tacos, chocolate covered strawberries, funnel cake, frozen chocolate dipped cheese cake and even deep fried coke (we don't recommend this treat), we tried it all!

You never know what the coming year will bring. But hopefully, the good Lord will allow us to do it all again next year and include the rest of "everyone else".