Favorite Family Foto.

Deborah of Pictures, Pots, and Pens used to host this theme each Friday and I am terribly compelled to post this theme this week. My heart is so full of love for my family I just needed to release some of it by creating this collage of our lives together.


I am so thankful for our small but wonderful family! Being an only child, having an only child who married an only child makes for a tight, and very closeknit family! I praise the Lord for putting us all together in just this way.

Friday's Favorite Family Foto

Tomorrow dad will be 90! But we are going to a famly reunion and wont be celebrating so we had a special birthday breakfast on Wednesday with family and friends!

The Ageless Bible study group met at the Roanoker to do a bit of community outreach and as well as honor my dear dad on his special occasion! it was a huge delight.

Special friends turned out to show their love... Here Carroll has been dad's best buddy since 1952!

Friday's Favorite Family Foto

Take me out to the ballgame!

Last year we went to the Tech Baseball game.

This year Amanda and Josh are enjoying becoming Red Sox fans!

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Friday's Favorite Family Foto

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I am so proud of Amanda! She starts her new career on Tuesday! She is now officially an assistant research scientist in a lab outside of Boston!

Friday's Favorite Family Foto

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This is such a cute foto. This was taken in 2000 when Amanda had turned 15 and she was just starting to play in Joshua's ensemble. Now, 9 years later they are happily married starting new life in their new home!

Friday's Favorite family Foto

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This photo hold very special memories. Not only does it commemorate Josh's special day, but it was taken at the chapel at which he and Amanda were wed 4 years ago!

Friday Family Favorite Foto

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It is hard to believe that it is already Memorial Day weekend. Summer is just around the corner and school will soon be out. For several years beginning about 18 years ago we had already joined a local pool. We were determined that Amanda would be a great swimmer. Lynn was at least comfortable in the water and could swim well, but I have always hated the pool. I only learned enough swimming to barely pass the class in college.

We started having Amanda get used to the water at an early age. She loves swimming now and was on the swim team for years growing up.

Friday's Family favorite Foto

As we contemplate graduation day we are reminded of Amanda's highschool graduation in 2003....

her undergrad graduation from Tech in 2006.

She then continued on and got her Master's degree in Bio Med just before Christmas of last year.

Today we attend Joshua's post grad graduation and will be our last official trip to Tech. A wonderful, but bitter sweet day as we say goodbye to this amazing chapter of our lives!

Deborah of Pictures, Pots, and Pens hosts this each week.

Friday Favorite Family Foto

Our daughter and sil, Amanda and Josh, are the apples of our eyes. Even though they are now living pretty far away, I am finding just how wonderful cell phones really are. She really is only a phone call away.

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Favorite Family Foto, Friday

Now that it is April I can finally share one of my absolute favorite family fotos! Why, April? Because this month my mom will turn 86 and this foto was taken about 83 years ago.

Isn't that the cutest foto of my mother with her double first and favorite cousin, Ralph, who lived on the connecting farm. His mother was my granddad's sister, and his dad was my grandma's brother. Wild, isnt it? But mom and Ralph were real partners in crime growing up.

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Friday's Favorite Family Foto

Deborah at Pictures, Pots, Pens
is hosting this theme every Friday. Vsit her site for more FFFF!

Today I would like to share the first photo we ever had made of Amanda. Here she is only 4 months old. We had just gotten her at 15 weeks and we took her to the photographers the next week. She certainly was a braw lassie!

Check out those long fingers! She is a wonderful pianist and violinist!

Favorite Family Foto Friday

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This morning I'd like to share this photo of my great, great grandmother, Martha Watson Blair. She was my maternal grandmother's grandma and as I understand it she was not a favorite. But she was married to William Sydney Blair who was quite the dashing figure of the family, a scholar of aristocratic bloodlines. Martha, unfortunately, allowed her good match go to her head, for she was enamored with her station in life and let it go to her head. The Blair connection is my closest connection to my Scottish heritage. Capt. Thomas Blair. William Sydney's, grandfather, actually was a Scottish Tory officer in the Revolutionary war, but was wounded so seriously he was left for dead in North Carolina. The war ended while he recuperated and he migrated to southwest Virginia where he established the first iron works in that area and helped to settle Grayson County.

I was always pleased to have this photo of Martha, because we are all proud of our Blair heritage and we named our daughter Amanda Blair to keep the name in the family!

Friday''s Favorite Family Foto

Deborah of Pictures, Pots, and Pens hosts this each week. Visit her for more FFFF!

I would like to share this photo I took of my grandfather probably 35 years ago. He was born in 1895 and fought in WWI in France. He was a very proud American and loved history and our country so much. He was a dairy farmer who built his own home, raised a fine family, and was a productive, involved citizen for all of his 87 years. He passed into glory in 1982, 3 years before Amanda was born.

Friday's Favorite Family Fotot

I love this portrait! We had this done when Amanda was about 8. I have a sweet much younger cousin, Jenny, whose parents had a similar portrait done of her in the same position which I always thought was the cutest thing i ever saw! So we decided to do the same with Amanda.

This was my favorite dress she ever had. Of red fiel,( I dont know how to spell it) fabric, with a built in crinoline! Beautfiul!

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Friday's Favorite Family Foto

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Today I was looking through some fotos and ran across this one which is just so indicative of Amanda's joie de vivre! Taken on her college graduation day she exudes the thrill of accomplishment and anticipation and expectation of whatever the future may hold.

Taken three years ago she still had 2 1/2 years of grad school ahead of her. Today she is completely finished with school and is deep in the throes of job hunting! I pray that she will soon find the niche God has for her in this troubled world! She has tons to offer whomever might hire her, and if you dont believe it, just ask her mother!

Friday's Favorite Family Foto

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Sunday I had my parents over for a Valentine dinner to spend some time with the kids before they left for Boston. This is one of the last photos I got of them with Amanda.

Favorite Family Foto Friday

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I ran across these photos this week! So for FFFF I would like to share the alpha/omega photos of my formal education beginning in 1956. This was my first grade foto attending Washington Heights Elementary.

I remember that darling wool jumper my mother made for me. It was a beautiful brown plaid with a sweetheart sweater. I always loved it!

Then my senior picture in 1968- remember the flip?

I remember we worked so hard to get that flip to hold. (At least, I had to!)

Favorite Family Foto, Friday

This past Sunday we were privileged to take my Mom and Dad back to Amanda and Josh's for the last time. Mom had given them a nice wingback chair to have recovered to take with them when they move. It had taken Amanda and I hours to pick out the new fabric. I posted about it a few weeks ago.

When the chair was finished a couple of weeks ago the kids were thrilled with the final result!

So Mom and Dad were not only anxious to go to Blacksburg to see the kids one last time before they move, but also to see the chair.

Even though there were packing boxes sitting all around that chair still looked great! But I detect a pensive attitude in Mom and Dad as they considered that that was probably the last time they'd ever visit in Amanda and Josh's home~

It was really difficult saying goodbye to Blacksburg after all the wonderful memories there during college, the wedding, and seeing the kids build their love nest!

The moving company picked up their things this past Wednesday.

For more FFFF visit Deborah at Pictures, Pots, and Pens!

Favorite Family Foto, Friday

Deborah, of Pictures, Pots, and Pens, hosts this theme each week. It is fun to look up cute fotos of family and I just love this shot out neighbor took of Amanda in his garden when she was four. I only wish I could scan it instead of take a picture of it. But hopefully, the essence of it comes through!

As you can see she has always had that dazzling smile!

Favorite Family Foto Friday

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I was thrilled to have Amanda stop in one evening this week to share with us all about their trip to New England and talk about some properties they had seen. I was able to make one of her favorite "little girl" meals,

~ pork chops, rice and peas~

And then there she was sitting in her regular seat at the table! I have to say,

"I just love it see her sitting there!"

Of course, we always miss Joshua, but he is all but finished writing his dissertation! It is due tomorrow! Praise the Lord, He is almost finished!