Friday Favorites - Stephen

 

TWENTY!!!  This guy is 20. . .no more teenagers.  What JOY to be his mother!!

Happy Friday :). It's been a bit. . .either Friday "sneaks up" on me, or I don't feel I have much to say.  I was just going through pictures, though, and figure if I take them, they have a story to tell, so here we go. . . 

As I do many Fridays, I'm linking up with Erika and Andrea for some FAVORITES on a Friday :)

When you are done here, you can click on their names, see what they are up to, and then find more Friday Favorite posts from their linky party.

I started this post thinking I would go through recent pictures and give a life update, starting with Stephen's birthday.  I grabbed this screenshot because it was ironic that, of the 50 FAVORITES in rotation as my lock screen, this would be the one up right now:

My sister took him and my dad out earlier this summer and they sent me this picture :)

As often happens, I thought, "let me pull some more pictures" and then, well, it just turned into "I'll pivot and do a post on the one most likely to be angry that I'm doing an entire post on him".  Oh well.

He is such a terrific kid and this is my journal, my memories, and these make me happy on this Friday in September!

This kid was our fourth in five years. . .the best surprise I'm sure we'll ever experience!  

I wrote this post in 2009 when I was first getting this blog off the ground and wanted to capture my kids as they were "right then"

And here he is, fourteen summers later, driving the boat:

And tubing off the boat. . .

I'm thankful for the years and years and years we've spent on the lake together as a family.  

A FAVORITE in my life.

We dropped him off in his dorm room three falls ago and he's never looked back.  Unlike the other three, he did NOT get his Associate's degree first and wanted to go straight to the University.  No kidding, he applied on his own, got all his housing and everything set up and would have figured out how to pay for it, too, if he hadn't worn us down by then.  He was seventeen.

Two of his FAVORITE people, by far, doing one of his most FAVORITE things.

Another instance of him just "going his own way".  None of us golf but he decided that he wanted to and, well, he had an aunt and uncle (and grandpa) that were more than willing to pour into that passion with him.  He went out for his school's golf team and, I believe, golfed all four years with them. . .here he is with Grandpa Foster again at one of his matches in 2020:

Boy, this kid loves his grandparents.  To say it's a FAVORITE trait of his would be an understatement.  It is the neatest thing to watch your kids love your parents.  He goes out and plays pickleball with the Bells and my dad when he can.  Here he was with Nana and Grandpa last week:

We were in Ohio in June and got on the court with Grandpa Foster too

And, with his other Grandmother, their FAVORITE thing to do is go out to eat :)

Two of my FAVORITE guys, who we will be celebrating this weekend - 20 and 51 :)

(That bar was in Greece - he was "legally" drinking)

A 2023 top 10 picture :)

All my FAVORITES -

a smile on Stephen

we are on the lake

we are representing his FAVORITE school - the University of Tennessee

Happy Friday!