Thankful to be able to gather together another year!

We had our annual Hicks/Wallace family dinner today and it was so good to be able to see everyone once again catching up on what has been happening in lives since we last met. Some of our family couldn't be with us this year for various reasons and we certainly missed them. Especially Samantha and her husband who are in Korea and Rachel and Steve who were in St. Louis at another family dinner and son Tim and Kat and her husband and sister Carol to name a few. Everyone has a place around the table and when they are gone they are missed!

This year besides the turkey I tried a couple new meat dishes with Pork Tenderloin. One was smoked in the oven and one was cooked with Cranberry sauce/Orange Juice. Both were excellent. And of course we had ham which Rachel was soooo sorry to have missed! But she can be thankful her momma saved her some back!

This is the first year we had so much food that I had to use the counter on both sides of the kitchen. We had to put the salads and desserts and drinks on one side and the main dishes on the other. All the food was so very good!

Rachel wasn't here to make Lonnie's (Mule Skinner) favorite salad so Jennifer made it. Good thing cause he asked where it was first thing!

And sister Brenda brought her salad that I love! Has sour cream and powdered sugar mixed with butter and lemon juice as the sauce and you pour it over apples, bananas, nuts, oranges, coconut and probably whatever else you want to put in there. Working on a family cookbook and of course this will go right up front!

This picture does my heart good. Jim's mom and dad and my dad and Jim's sister and her husband all enjoying the good company as well as the food. Does it get any better than this? It's important to honor those that brought us into this world and I enjoy that we can have both sides here at the same time. And I hope the younger generation realize the importance of carrying on the tradition of family gatherings!And of course we must save room for dessert!

We had tables set up everywhere. It was a beautiful day so we could eat outside as well as in. Here's my son Kevin with his family. Can you tell Luke likes having his picture taken?

Here's my niece with her fiance.

and my sister with her family in the entryway eating on my Great Aunts dinette set. I am sure that over the years this dinette set has seen many family dinners !

Kat made this beautiful dessert. Gorgeous as well as delicious

And niece Samantha gave me this secret recipe just cause I am family. They'll be home for Christmas and hoping to get to see her and her husband then.

And to end the good times we had to once again blow the Hunting Horn or whatever it is called. My dad used to call his dogs back with one of these.

The end to a beautiful day! Hope you enjoyed sharing with us! Mule Skinner blows this every year and it has became a tradition. Calling all the family together once again!

Hope you too have special times where your family gathers together over food with much laughter and good times. If they don't someone has to start the tradition and you might as well be the one! You'll be glad you did some day!