Celebrating Grannie's Birthday

This past weekend we traveled to Grannie's house to help her celebrate her birthday which was actually last week. We left early Friday to meet Grannie, Pops, An Am and Pete at The Chop House for dinner. What a great meal! I love that place and hadnt been since we moved from Knoxville about 6 years ago. Connor was a little stinker but also a very good boy for having to ride in the car such a long way and have to sit in a high chair throughout dinner. I wasnt sure how that was going to work, but he tolerated it well. We were all sitting there looking at our menus and the waitress came up and said, "Would you all like to hear the specials?" Connor looked at her and said, "Yes". She began to list the special they were offering that night and she asked if he liked that. He said, "Yes". Of course I knew too well that he didnt and he would be having his "regular" that he has everytime we go out to eat, "chickenfries" as he calls it. He then began handing her the bread dishes that he no longer wanted and said, "Here you go." It was hilarious! When we got home we had some cake in honor of Grannie's birthday. An Am and Pete came down to spend the night with us. And when you look at the pictures, she is not 85! Ha! That was a little joke by An Am and Pete. It looks by the pictures that it was Connors birthday because he blew out the candles and had a present to open! An Am and Pete are too good to him and got him a polo, blue jeans, and a khaki golf jacket. It is too cute and he will be very handsome in it. Thank you guys!

Helping Grannie blow out the candles.

Yaaahh for Connor! "I did it" he said.

On Saturday we headed back up to Knoxville- the boys to the boat show and the girls to go shopping. Pete unfortunately wasnt feeling well and had to go home- we missed you and hope you are feeling better! We then met for lunch and on the way home took a little detour to see the coal ash disaster. It was much worse than I could have ever imagined and my heart goes out to the people having to look at this day after day. Even the people who live in the vicinity that werent directly affected by the ash, are having to deal with truck after truck going back and forth tearing up their roads to clean up the mess.

Doris, we hope you had a wonderful birthday! We had a great weekend and hope to see you all soon! Here are some pictures I took of the coal ash sludge. Sorry some of them are dark, I had to turn my flash off to get the shots to come out.

This poor family now has the view of coal ash in their backyard instead of a water view.

In the background behind the tree it looks like a view of the mountains, but it is actually ash.

Again no more water, all ash..

I thought this picture was great because it shows you all of the stuff that was swept away in the tidal wave (lawn mower, stove, and other appliances)

In places where there was no water before, it is now lake front property.