The Family Table

When I was growing up, for most of my young life life, the family table consist of an eight or nine foot table with two church pews on either side. As a child you would mostly climb over or crawl under to get up to the table. We were able to fill up the room with our family of 13, or friends and other family. We had a lot of people over for dinner. If a friend happened to be there ,they were invited and on Sundays the missionary's and other people were invited. Any major Holiday, like Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas we had a table and sometimes tables full of people. The table seemed to be where all the gatherings took place. Whether it be eating freshly popped popcorn for an after school snack, while we watched my mom pay bills, various crafts, homework, or just talking there was always room at the table and as you can see it has carried over to the many Grandchildren that my parents have( 27 with the 28th on the way). Having fun at the table while building eternal ties. Food is a whole other subject that could go on forever. I have many memories of eating fast to get seconds. I also used to turn the chicken platter a certain way, just at the last minute, right before the prayer, so no one else could move it, then I got the piece I wanted. I was a pretty good eater,not too picky, I had siblings that would sit at the table long after dinner was over because they didn't want to eat their food. I would tease them.{not very nice I know, but come on they were sitting ducks} We ate a lot of apples and oranges, sliced up on a plate for dinner. { there was a main course also, but Skip just found this weird I find it quite normal} One Thanksgiving we had Tacos and one Thanksgiving we were camping and had hot dogs. My mom made a lot of homemade bread and pasta. My mom came up with this one thing she called "Kidwiches" Hot dogs and hamburger mixed with some sort of sauce. {Left overs what are you going to do}

In this picture,taken on Christmas day, there are two gallons of milk on the table, this was typical. We went through milk like it was... well milk. Sometimes we would pick it up from seminary every morning, about four gallons a day. At one time we did get it straight from a dairy, straight from the cow,you had to shake it everytime you used it to mix the cream and the milk together. That was cool except when the cows get into persimmon patches...ooooo Sour!