Walkin' in Memphis

At the end of July, our whole family took a weekend trip to visit Uncle Bud and Aunt Vickie who live in Memphis. They have lived there a long time (Vickie was born and raised there) and we've been to see them lots of times. But this time, we decided to be tourists for the afternoon.

With Daniel's strong interest in music, we thought it would be fun to go check out Beale Street and some of the musical connections in Memphis (we didn't make it to Graceland). Since it was very hot, we opted to walk a "few feet off of Beale" to the Rock and Soul Museum, which happens to be adjacent to the FedEx Forum, where the Memphis Grizzlies play basketball. Later that evening, we met up with the rest of the fam and ate dinner at a restaurant on Beale Street and then went to see a Memphis Redbirds baseball game (the stadium is also in downtown Memphis).

The museum was curated with the help of the Smithsonian Institute, so it's not too shabby. Lots of fun musical memorabilia and juke boxes with music from the 40s, 50s and 60s to listen to (or dance to, if you're a woman off of a tour bus who was reliving her youth . . . not anyone we knew, but she was comical to watch).

Before we went downtown on Saturday, we also spent some time in Germantown, outside of Memphis, at a park (again, it was HOT) and walking around a shaded outdoor museum of sorts with an old-timey jail and fire truck and train caboose.

It was a fun trip and we enjoyed getting to spend time with Bud and Vickie and various other relatives and friends of the family.

Now for the pictures:

Swinging at the park

A little piece of shade

Mary Lane liked this "little boy" and thought he was crying.

Erica and Grandma in jail

Someone's peeking around the ladder on the back of the red caboose

Smile!

Daniel was conveniently wearing his U2 shirt that day, so it was a great photo op

Our dinner destination

Uncle Bud, Aunt Vickie and Erica

Vickie's sister, Valerie, and Erica became buddies

Vickie and Bud own the jewelry store that sponsors the "Kiss Cam"

My cousin, Scott, and his wife, Sonnia

Vickie's nephew, Cole, with Daniel and Vickie

Thirteenth First Day of School

Well, I'm behind on posting again (why do I put such high expectations on myself?) and I also wasn't able to find all of the pictures that I wanted for this post. So . . . I'll just have to improvise and adjust my expectations.

Last Wednesday (yes, August 1st) was Daniel's last first day of school, or with a more positive spin, his thirteenth first day of school. Yikes!

I sure couldn't really imagine what that day would be like when I took him to Kindergarten on August 17, 2000. I remember that he was nervous, but was very brave and went into his classroom and sat down to color at his new desk. After the appropriate amount of time, we left and he didn't cry . . . until the next day and the next 50 or 60 or 100 school days after that. Poor guy, he missed his Momma!

Every year I have taken Daniel's picture on the front steps of our house. Here are some of the milestone years:

Senior Year - 2012

8th grade - 2008 (Last year of Meigs Middle School)

4th grade - 2004 (Last year of Tusculum Elementary School)

Kindergarten - 2000

There was one more big difference between Daniel's first day of Kindergarten and his first day of Senior year. When we took him to Tusculum Elementary for his very first day of school, we drove him down the street and walked him to his classroom.

On his last first day of school, Daniel drove himself downtown to Hume-Fogg High School, parked behind the school and strutted into the school to find his own classrooms. Yep, he's a Senior!

July Birthday Fun, part two

Five days after Daniel turned 17, Mary Lane had her turn. As she approached her second birthday, she had finally gotten what the excitement was all about, but she didn't quite understand that other people have birthdays, too, like her cousin. Jeanette and Russell tried to get Mary Lane to participate in a video birthday greeting for Daniel, but everytime Erica would say "Happy Birthday, Daniel," Mary Lane would say, "Mine birthday!"

Daniel said he was going to have a little talk with Mary Lane. :-)

Mary Lane finally got her special day and we celebrated in style. She has a love for purses, so Jeanette came up with the idea to have purses be the theme of the party. I got some help from my fellow crafting friend, Barbara, and made a banner for Mary Lane and decorated the living room while Mary Lane napped.

I also made some cupcake toppers and other simple decorations. Jeanette took care of the sandwich supper.

Mary Lane definitely knew that the party was for her when she got up from her nap. She was excited about the presents and the cupcakes and we all had fun celebrating her sweet life.

At one point we were getting things ready for supper and Jeanette got the cupcakes out of the fridge and sat the tray on top of the stove. A minute later, Grandma said, "Where is she going with that?"

Mary Lane had seen the cupcakes and ran to get the stool and was heading to the stove to help herself! We held her off for a little while, but then she got to enjoy her birthday treat!

We ended the evening by watching the videos from when Mary Lane was born and her first birthday. It was poignant when we realized that Grandpa was in the videos. We are so thankful that he got to see all of his grandchildren and that Mary Lane can have pictures and video of her Grandpa who loved her very much!

July Birthday Fun, part one

Ok, I guess I better post something about our July Birthdays before the month gets away from me. The birthday "babies" were actually born in the first week of the month, but we don't have to mention that right now, do we?

First off, the birthday "boy" (um, "man" is probably more accurate). You already saw his big present (although I need to say that while we gave him the car, he gets to learn the responsibility of taking care of it and paying for his own insurance).

Daniel and I had just returned from the youth mission trip the night before his birthday, so we had a low-key day and family dinner that night. The next day a friend of ours who owns a boat took Daniel and some of his buddies out on the lake to do some tubing. I don't have any pics of that, but here are some of the family dinner:

Daniel's New Ride

The day finally arrived. Daniel is now the proud owner of a 2000 Nissan Maxima (most recently owned by his dad). It's been in the works for a few weeks, and we told Daniel about the deal on his birthday, but we finally got everything finalized today. Unfortunately it was not without a couple of hiccups.

It was a "linear" transfer of title, meaning that no money was exchanging hands and his dad could transfer the title to him without tax implications. That part went off fine. In fact, most of the experience went off without a hitch. We had the all of the paperwork (or so we thought . . . hiccup) and got to the at the Davidson County Clerk's office soon after they opened at 8:00 in the morning. We waited a couple of minutes for the clerk to call us up to the desk and handed her the paperwork and Daniel told her what we were needing. She commenced to marking the papers, stamping things, getting the new licence plate ready and asked me for payment.

As I was writing the check, she said, "This emissions test is expired."

I had handed her the latest one done last year (but not a full calendar year) and told her I knew that it was old, but that we didn't have a form to take to the testing site (like you get in the mail when you get the annual registration renewal).

"Oh, you just take the title to the testing site and they take care of it."

Um . . . maybe you could make that clear on your website or when someone calls to ask what we need to do for a linear transfer (of course I didn't say that out loud). Hiccup!

And the car was several miles away in Bellevue and Daniel's key was at our house in south Nashville. Hiccup!

Thankfully, we were able to connect with Daniel's dad and went to get the car and then Cary and Daniel took it from there. The rest of the experience went smoothly and Daniel called me to say that he was officially the owner of the car. Whew!

Here are some pics from when we told him about the car on his birthday and from Daniel's photo shoot with his new car (I didn't have to twist his arm like I'd thought I might have to do)

Real men work at VBS!

This is a rare photo of Daniel and Russell together (thanks to Rebecca S.), not because they don't like each other, but because other younger, female members of the family are usually being photographed (ahem, just can't help it sometimes).