Max, LEGOmaster/my family

DAY THIRTY-EIGHT: Jenny and Max have been visiting her parents in Houston, TX for the past four days, and returned today in the afternoon. Max got to play with cousins and children of Jenny's friends, and it sounds as though they had a great time, with several wonderful meals and good family time. While they were there, Max got a LEGO kit that was fairly complicated, called Hero Factory. I guess he got some help putting it together but actually, he is incredibly skilled at putting together LEGO kits. He is very focused and patient, follows the directions well and doesn't get frustrated. Ellen had ordered him a little kit that came while he was away, so the first thing he did upon getting back  home was to put it together.

Fitting those LEGO pieces together carefully

Mugging for his grandpa

Showing off his Hero Factory - and looking a little sinister himself!

Ellen and I try to walk every day. Yesterday it was pretty snowy and the scene above Paul's house was different from previous days when it has been wonderfully sunny:

A monochromatic, snowy scene

I went on Facebook today to look at a long accumulation of posts by various people - I rarely do that. I don't have that much interest in Facebook. But today I found a wonderful photo of two of my first cousins who live in the south. They are sisters, and both are daughters of my father's sister, Annie Williamson. Martha Jane Moe lives in North Carolina, and Frances Helen Gardiner lives in Mississippi. Both are older than I am. Ellen and I visited Frances Helen a few years ago but I haven't seen Martha Jane since I was 12 years old and went to my grandmother's funeral in Bremen, Georgia, in 1946. It was wonderful to see their faces. 

My first cousins, Martha Jane Moe and Frances Helen Gardiner, 2014

Here is a group family portrait taken at the time of my grandmother Crockett's funeral in October of 1946.

My father's family, Bremen, Georgia, 1946

Martha Jane is on the far right, in back. Count in four to the left from her, and that's me. Just to the right of me is my Aunt Annie Williamson, and my mother is just to the left of me (dark jacket with white blouse). Count two to the left of my mother, in the same row, and that's Frances Helen (sort of a plum-colored suit, with a kerchief in her pocket). My father was taking the picture, so he's not in it. But here's one taken at the same occasion, with my mother and father, and an aunt (I'm not sure which one. It isn't Annie. It might be Aunt Minnie).

My aunt ??, me, mother and father, 1946