Ham 'n Beans

On Tuesday evening, Tyler came home from work a little early and we loaded up the kids and headed for Great-Grandpa Ray’s house.  Let me tell you, ham n’ beans and cornbread tastes even better when shared with great company.  We stayed a few hours, and had a lovely evening, sharing stories of “old times” and photos to match.  It was wonderful to see a small spark back in Grandpa’s eyes, something that is harder to surface now that Grandma is gone. He spoke of fishing with Grandma, and shared the story of catching his $1,000 fish (literally, he caught a fish and won $1000)! He pulled out an old album so that he could show me pictures of the dock that he built at Grand Lake, and of course, had to proudly display his fishing trips shared with two of the cutest grandkids ever (that would be my husband and his adorable sister!). He knows exactly how many steps that he built down to the dock (60-some), and could recall every great experience ever had there.  He also recounted some of his hunting excursions with Tyler & Irene, and some even brought a chuckle back.

 

He ended the evening by giving Tyler one of his most prized gifts, some of his framed fishing lures. Many of the jigs, he actually hand-made himself. He had to explain to the kids what each was good for and that he had actually fished with many of them!  They were amazed. Grandpa had made one of these frames for each of the kids, but he hadn’t given one to Tyler yet, so he wanted to make sure that he got one.  Tyler came straight home and put in on display in our office, along with our other most proud pieces. We had a wonderful evening!