Smitty and I would love to share with you the Smith Family Memories book we just completed.  If you click on the link below you will be able to read an e-version of it.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s9ozIBh8-oypoDIXQEuoJfdP2Eb2cFkV/view?usp=sharing

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS 2020

As we are sitting on our little porch with our two precious kitties across from our rose garden, we look at each other and can’t help but feel how blessed we are.

Who would have thought that we would have to postpone celebrating my birthday in March because something called a pandemic has taken over our country.  The girls were planning a big 90th birthday celebration for Smitty in October and of course we were locked in at our little Touchmark community.  However it turned out to be very special. Emily (granddaughter) and Brookes invited us for dinner and entertained us with one of her delicious home cooked meals.  

Emily also made us one of her special apple pies for Thanksgiving. 

The Davis family have all become very good cooks.

We have it so much better than most since we are in our own little gated community with 40 cottages, little parks and gardens, and a lovely big gazebo for community picnics and get-togethers. 

We take our golf cart over to “the big house” for meals and have an in house TV station for activities.  Since we are only 10 minutes away from Joy and Dan, we see them often and they keep us supplied with treats and anything we need.  We moved into their lovely home several times to take care of our grand pup, Mr. Goose, a border collie and sometimes Miss Daisy, Emily’s Bernese Mountain Dog when they travel. 

Thank goodness for our cell phones.  We are in contact with the kids almost daily with a text or a picture.  When the phone rings before breakfast, I know it’s Sandy.  That’s our chat time.  When my cell phone stopped working Suzie sent me one slightly used.  When the computer acted up, Timmy in Florida fixed it over the phone.  When it finally quit, Sam ordered me a rebuilt one just like my old 24 inch Apple for a great price.  I was so glad that I didn’t have to relearn everything.  We are so spoiled.  I have learned to use the Walmart app and it’s an occasion for us to drive over to pick up our order and maybe stop at McDonalds for a mocha frappe. 

Smitty doesn’t have his old energy to participate in many things but he stills has an impact here at Touchmark.  He hasn’t lost his wonderful smile and still loves to tease.  It’s a treat to watch the response of some of these “old ladies” when he shows them attention.  That may be the reason that when the residents voted for the king and queen of Mardi Gras, we were chosen.  It was a nice honor. 

I have my rose garden and my craft cave in the garage.  The garden was so productive that we supplied all 60 tables in the dining rooms with fresh flowers.  When the dining rooms had to close, I took arrangements to the apartments.  I am now known as the “Flower Lady”.

My current project is making beaded bracelets for gifts. 

Our big excitement is another wedding.  Andrew is marrying Alex on December 18 in Scottsdale, Arizona and moving to Oklahoma City to join Dan in the law firm.  We have gotten to know Alex and are so excited to have them nearby.  Emily is on the “front line” at Baptist Hospital delivering babies to some of those infected moms.  Brooks is Senator Langford’s right hand man.  Our man Sam is a senior at OU taking his LSATs getting ready for law school and planning to join the family firm.  We marvel at how Joy keeps all of those young people in line at the office and is hostess extraordinaire.  Dan expends his extra energy on the golf course.

Sandy and David are in Tennessee enjoying our old Ski Nautique on the nearby river.  David completely rebuilt it and it is now red and named “Second Chances”.  They were planning a trip here for Thanksgiving but CoVid forced us to cancel.  David's youngest, Anna, is living in Columbus, Ohio and was able to drive down and join them for Thanksgiving last minute. 

We have used this unexpected free time to good advantage.  For years we have been writing down our family history and stories to share with our children and generations to come.  This has given us time to finish writing it and Sandy is formatting it to send off to the printer. Sandy has also been going through all Smitty's old videos and putting them on YouTube for everyone to enjoy.

Danielle, our little real estate tycoon is now an avid golfer.  Rufus is showing some gray hairs, but enjoys being king of the castle at their home in Lawrence, Kansas.  Smitty is proud that he cut down her first set of clubs and taught Dani to play as a youngster at Hide-A-Way Lake.  Sandy discovered a video of little Dani opening the clubs and exclaiming "This is the best gift I've gotten all year."

Suzie had a very busy spring.  Clayton Homes had many models that needed furnished and decorated.  She barely had time to be sick with Covid but bounced right back and finished her jobs.  

The Orlando crew are an active bunch.  Steve works with CaptiveAire (a family company) the leading manufacture of commercial kitchen hoods.  Trish has had to work with this virtual teaching but I’m sure she has made it as fun as possible with her little 1st graders.  Jenna is a freshman in college and is a VERY talented artist.  Brother Christian is an athlete.

Alison and Tim are learning the fine art of home schooling with their three.  Alison is so patient and loving, I’m sure she makes it fun.  Since Tim is working at home I’m sure he pitches in.

This has been a trying time for us all but sometimes it brings out the best in us.  If we can just remember how much we have to be thankful for nothing seems so bad.  We are especially thankful for our family and friends and hope you are all well and have a blessed holiday.  Remember the reason for the season.

Christmas Greetings 2019

Holiday Greetings!

I knew it was going to be fun living here.  2019 was the year of weddings and parties.  The kids and their friends are wonderful to include us in so many things.   

On June 7, Smitty and I celebrated our 67 year Wedding Anniversary. 

Our favorite waitress at Touchmark surprised us that morning with some celebratory pancakes!

Our granddaughter, Emily, was married June 8, the day after our anniversary.  Emily's wedding was big and beautiful.  

It was wonderful being escorted down the aisle by such handsome (tall!) grandsons.  

Andrew has his own law practice in Arizona and Sam is attending OU in Norman.

 The wedding was like a family reunion for us.  My sister Julie and Kate, her oldest, flew in from Ohio.  David and Sandy drove in from Tennessee & Danielle drove in from Kansas.

Emily is a pediatric nurse at Baptist Hospital and Brookes Wright, her husband, works for Senator Langford.  The families have all blended and Brookes is a catch.

The rest of their little family is our Grandpup, Daisy.  She is a Bernese Mountain dog and we love doggy sitting her and Mr. Goose when Joy & Dan are away traveling with Emily & Brookes.

Smitty is doing very well.  He will never be as strong as he was before he had the brain bleed, but it hasn't made him stop participating - just slows him down.  We meet with a group of six or eight around a table every morning for a big breakfast and solve the problems of the day for about two hours.

Then I go around and water the flowers on the dining room tables and in the halls.  Smitty goes down to the wellness center in the basement and uses the machines.  Life at Touchmark is all we hoped it would be.

My roses this summer were outstanding.  I have nine bushes and lots of bedding plants between. I have been supplying flowers out of our garden for the tables daily.  We just planted 488 Spring bulbs so we will have them for the tables in the Spring.  I was surprised at how much the residents enjoy the flowers.  They call me The Flower Lady and I love it!

We have new next door neighbors from Ohio, Babs and George.  We really like them and do a lot together.  Babs is helping me with the flowers and is a big help.  In October, we had an OctoberFest in the big gazebo behind our home with all of the neighbors.  We made it a pot luck and it was such a success they want to do another one.

One of the highlights of the year was the visit of Joan and Fred Carrigan, our close friends from Hideaway.  They were on their way to visit her sister and it was such fun.  We all went over to Joy and Dan's and had a lovely afternoon around their pool and a picnic on their porch.  Wanda and Hershel Sanders called the other day on their way to OSU for a grandson's football game.  We are hoping the next time they will allow time to stop over.

Sandy and David joined us for Thanksgiving and we were very excited.  Ever since Joy and Dan bought the house on Desert Mountain in Scottsdale their family has spent Thanksgiving there.  We aren't traveling anymore because of the clots in Smitty's legs.  He is doing so well that we are happy to stay put.  We also invited some of our friends from Touchmark, Karen & Eric.  We were staying at Joy's taking care of Mr. Goose, their Border Collie. Sandy, our master chef, organized the menu and I enjoyed spending time in the kitchen being her sous chef.

Suzie wasn't able to come for Thanksgiving but came a few days earlier to take us to get our new hearing aids.  Her life has been busy and she is spending more time on the road than ever. 

She is now working as an Ambassador for a big wine group - The Boisset Collection that has 29 wineries in France and Napa Valley. She was also asked by the LG Appliance company to style their booth at the International Builders Show, and their new Experience and Design Center in Napa.

Trish, Steve, and their family are as busy as ever. Christian is on a baseball team that has done really well and travels to tournaments. He is now almost taller than his Mom and Dad! Can you believe that Jenna will be 18 in a few weeks, and will be graduating high school this year! She continues to excel at school and now is taking after her Mom and has apart time job at Michaels.

Tim, Alison and their family have had a busy year as well. Where does the time go? All of the kids are now in school, and active in after school activities. They all have inherited their father's talent with computers.

We love our Sundays going to LifeChurch with Joy and Dan and the kids and to brunch after.  We have become involved in a new outreach program with them.  We will be occasionally cooking dinner for women in a "Hope is Alive" halfway house - one of the missions LifeChurch supports.  Dan and I enjoy cooking together so we provided the Beef Tenderloin, mashed potatoes, yeast rolls, and dessert for their Wednesday dinner meeting.  

Smitty stood up and gave the prayer and then surprised us all with a heartfelt testimony to the group of about 35 women about what it was like growing up with a father suffering from alcoholism.  He really left an impression.  After all these years he still surprises me!  

We are feeling blessed and loved and enjoying every minute of our life together.  Seasons greetings and a very Merry Christmas to all of you.  

                                                       Love,  Norma & Smitty

Christmas 2018

Greetings from Oklahoma

We are so happy to report that living in a retirement community really isn’t so bad--IT IS QUITE NICE!   I love it and Smitty actually told someone that he LIKES it too.  It was hard for him at first because he missed our friends, our bible study, our church and our beautiful home on the lake.

We have our own 2000 square foot “cottage”, one of 45 in a gated area across the street from “the big house” where the apartments, assistant living and memory care are.  We take our little golf cart over for breakfast and activities.  It’s much nicer than we ever expected.  The landscaper dug our rose garden, Joy and Dan gave us 4 sections of old wrought iron fence, we got an arbor from Amazon and we have a lovely garden to look at from our “cozy” porch.

Our 5 rose bushes were so productive that we had a little rose ministry.  Smitty found the perfect vases at Hobby Lobby (close by) and we delivered 32 rose bouquets to some of the “old folks”.

It was hard leaving our church family in Lindale, but we are going with the kids to Life Church and love it.  We sit for the songs and watch all of the people around us--
young & old, dressed as they please, all nationalities and all so full of The Holy Spirit. It makes me think of what it must have been like when Peter preached to the crowd at Pentecost.  Craig is a great bible based preacher and I’ve read several of his books.  The nice part is that we go out together to eat after.

Touchmark has a well equipped wellness center which we use most days after breakfast.  That is sometimes our biggest meal of the day.  They always have fresh fruit, choice of meat, nice omelets and daily specials.  Six or eight of us meet at 8:30 at a big round table for a hearty meal and lusty conversation lasting usually over 2 hours.  We just got a new chef from Nemacolin Woodland Resort near where we grew up in Pennsylvania.  We are excited and looking forward to many more outstanding meals.

One of our new friends has had a career in the food business and we have much in common.  I’m having an opportunity to use some of my cooking skills here.  Dan’s mother came to visit this summer and we were encouraging her to move here so I had an impromptu afternoon tea to introduce her to ladies in the apartments.  It was such a success that I am having a Christmas Open house here on the 12th.  It gives me a chance to pull out my silver service and pretty dishes and try new recipes.

Our big new responsibility and joy is taking care of the children’s precious  2 dogs and cat while they travel.  We move right in and after we come back for breakfast (only 10 minutes away) we tend our cats and love on them.  We spend most of the time around their pool or lately baking things for our party and using their freezer to store them.

The highlight of the year was celebrating Smitty’s 88 birthday on October 19.  Joy and Dan hosted a dinner party for our new friends, Smitty’s pingpong buddies from their former neighborhood and our family.

Suzie came from Dallas, all of the Davis children were here including Andrew just before he left to open his own Law Firm in Scotsdale. David was having a little surgery so he and Sandy couldn’t come from Tennessee.  At the end of the evening they took us all to the media room and Sam projected on the big screen greetings from all who couldn’t come and a wonderful collection of photos through the years sent in by all.  Sam is a wizard with electronics and  it is a treasure.

Our girls were so wonderful taking care of the move, the sale of the house, disposing of the furniture we left behind and getting us settled.  We are so blessed.  We miss  Hideaway Lake, our friends and our church but this is an exciting new chapter of our lives and we are so thankful that we can take it together.

Have a blessed Christmas holiday

3041 Touchmark Drive
Edmond, Ok. 73003

405-509-2419 Land
903-530-6301 Cell

Paul.NormaSmith@Yahoo.com

We've Moved!

We have finally moved to Edmond, Ok. in  a gated community of 45 bungalows which are a part of Touchmark at Coffee Creek, a full service retirement community.

It’s even better than we hoped. Kim VerPlank & her dad (a resident in the apartments) on Sunday and after were sitting at the table for brunch when Joy & Dan popped in and joined us.  We are just 10 minutes from them.  They asked me to bake rolls for the office tomorrow for Dan’s birthday lunch.

Our neighbors are wonderful - especially the couple next door. He is the CFO at a local hospital and she is an accomplished pianist, witty and very caring. We had a dinner party last week for 6 of the neighbors and it was such fun, we are planning another for 8.

The girls gave me rose bushes for my birthday and the landscapers are digging my rose garden next week.

It was a very hard move because when Smitty finally decided, we did it in a month.  We never could have done it without our 3 daughters.  They handled everything - the move, getting the house ready to sell, staging it, getting rid of the furniture we didn’t take, helping us get settled here.  What a job!!  We could never have done it without them.  Don’t wait until you are as old as we are to downsize and move.

I found a spot for my crafts in the garage in a walled off area in front of the golf cart,  complete with an oriental rug! It's a perfect "Craft Cave."

One new friend is a Home Economist, decorator and recent widow.  She is special.  We are going to a cooking demo this week and she is helping us with decorating ideas.

Smitty is a new person.  He is up at 7:30 & we are off to a big breakfast with lots of friends and then to the newly renovated fitness center each morning.  He has more energy and is becoming his old “teasing” self.  I have my rose garden and he tends the 4x8 raised vegetable plot.

We miss Hideaway and our dear friends but are adjusting beautifully to our new life at Touchmark at Copper Creek.

2017 Christmas Greetings

Desert Mountain, AZ
Thanksgiving 2017

We just returned from a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with Joy, Dan and the boys.  We missed Emily since she is a Labor & Delivery Nurse and was busy delivering babies.  Sam is a Freshman at OU and Andrew is taking the Bar in February and will graduate from University of Arizona Law School in May.  It was such fun sitting around the firepit after a beautiful sunset listening to Andrew and Sam discussing the possibility of someday opening a law firm together.  It was just a year ago that all the girls and their families cancelled their Thanksgiving plans to come to Tyler where Smitty was in the hospital recovering from brain surgery.  We are so thankful for the prayers and words of encouragement from so many.  He has worked hard at his rehab and we were able to do some traveling this year.

                                                                                In May, we enjoyed celebrating Sam's High School Graduation.  Joy and Dan treated all of Dan's family and the Smith clan to a whirlwind celebration that included a party bus that transported us to downtown Oklahoma City for the ceremony and then over to lunch atop one of the high rise office towers with a beautiful view.  The festivities continued that evening on their back porch and friends and families from the neighborhood joined us to celebrate.  

The Davis Family
October, 2017

Dani purchased her first home last year and has been busy fixing it up and learning all about the challenges (and satisfaction) of owning a home. Replacing water heaters, garage door springs, removing popcorn ceilings and installing tile floors are just a few of the projects she has tackled as a Do-It-Yourself-er.  Her job as a Property Manager keeps her busy but she managed a week long holiday in New Orleans - after Sandy agreed to come and babysit Rufus!  Rufus loves his "grandmere" and she spoiled him terribly.  

Sandy & Dani
September, 2017

Mr. Rufus

Suzie, being the nearest, comes running when we need her.  Her design business takes her all over the country.  She just returned from Wisconsin where she was asked to speak to a group of builders.  After listening to me complain about not getting fresh apples here, she picked some and brought them all the way to Tyler.  What a treat!  Her crew in Florida are flourishing and we are thankful for emails.  They were not badly affected by the hurricanes.  Suzie, Sandy, Joy, Emily and Danielle were able to have a Girls Weekend in Florida the first week in April and got some quality time catching up with the cousins and grandbabies. We are hoping to arrange another visit with our great grandkids again this coming year.  They are growing up too fast!  

In October we visited Sandy & David's mountain home in Loudon, Tennessee.  What a treat that was to see their new home nestled among the trees and just a block away from the Tennessee River.  Sandy has a wonderful quilting studio with a view of the woods and deer.  I spent a memorable day with her and a friend enjoying lunch and shopping in Sweetwater.  Probably the most fun was playing on their ATV's driving through the woods, feeding their friendly deer corn, apples & blueberries (can you imagine!).  David, like Smitty, retired "young" and has kept busy with projects on the house and can do most anything. 

Our 1983 Ski Nautique hasn't been running and David agreed to adopt it and completely refurbish it.  He and Sandy drove here and trailered it back to Knoxville where he immediately got to work replacing the engine and rotted wood.  They have named it "Second Chance".  We are all thrilled since we have so many good memories of it pulling our kids and their friends around the lake.

We are thankful that Smitty is well enough to make these trips.  The girls have all been so great at helping us get to the airplanes and taking care of our needs.  How blessed we are to have such a loving family.

We are looking forward to continued good health in the New Year and send our best wishes to you all.