Earlier, back in Tennessee

Our Cimarron Circle Gang got together to celebrate the simple fact that the eight of us were all in town at the same time -- at least for long enough to go out to dinner at the local Mexican restaurant and then back over to Phyllis and Dave's. This is a fun group, and it was a jolly evening.

Out for the evening

Yesterday was my sister-in-law's birthday. We went to a lovely restaurant for a seafood and steak dinner, then later met friends at a local karaoke bar for music and dancing. And, yes, the music was really good. The only folks who volunteered to take the mike had all obviously been practicing a lot and I loved them all.

The photo at the top is Ann standing at the front to be serenaded by everyone ... "Happy Birthday" was the tune, of course!

We made it, Safe and Sound

We had an easy two-day drive down. Saw lots of those famous late-afternoon, south-
Florida thunderstorms all around us, but most of them missed us. A bit of a slow down once or twice, but John drove like a trooper.

John is already playing golf today with Jim, and I've been round to see our friends from Michigan who now live near us here.

All is in good shape - our neighbors stayed here for about a week last month, and they had the local cleaning lady come in after they left, so the place is probably cleaner than it was when we left last spring.

We're famous!

Our photo was printed today in the Family Moments section of the Knoxville News Sentinel.

I figured that three generations of our family on LeConte was at least as interesting as four generations of someone else's family in the parking lot at Shoney's restaurant ... and the paper apparently agreed!

And don't we look fine?!

Local Loudon County Event

John and I and a neighbor spent a refreshing evening last week attending the local fiddler's convention. Lots and lots and lots of good bluegrass fiddlin'. Lots of good ol' traditional American outdoor food. And one "home grown" character wearing a black bear hat. All good.

Aha! A mystery solved

A crappy picture, but it's the content that counts....

This silly squirrel is actually chewing the wood from beneath our deck railing! I have no idea what it is that tastes so good, but I'll be he's been doing that to the ends of our wooden swinging porch chairs, too.

Makes more sense than the wasps, which do also "mine" cellulose from exposed wood, but it didn't seem possible that they could do that much damage. Well, now I think I understand who the real culprit is!

Note to self ... I apparently need to wash those windows!

Peace Garden

The church members had made a small garden with donated flowers ... but because the bulldozers are coming soon, they dug up the plants to take home to "foster" until the new construction is finished.

Our Church's Storage Shed moves to its new location

First they tore down the old foundation, then put it up on wheels and moved it to the other end of the parking lot.

After precisely backing it over pre-dug foundation grooves, the masons built a new foundation underneath it.

All very slick and fun to watch!

Update

No photos this time, just a note to let you all know we're still kicking.

I've been busy working on a photography project as a volunteer. Our community church is starting a huge new expansion and we are recording the progress. It's just getting started ... the construction will be taking place for the next year and a half.

So far I've snapped a bunch of interior and exterior photos of the church for a "this is how it looked in 2009" sort of thing. Then, a house-moving company picked up the garage-storage shed and hauled it down to the other end of the large parking lot. That was fun to watch ... maybe I'll put a couple of those pix in today.

Then I also snapped the small "peace garden" that members had planted over the years. Since it will be bulldozed next week, they asked for folks to come dig up a few plants each to take home and "foster" in their own gardens until a new one is ready next year ... then they will bring the plants back (or replace them with similar ones if the originals don't survive the move in the heat of August.)

Then we had the large ground-breaking ceremony with speakers and shovels and good and music and lots of crowd shots, etc.

Anyway, I actually did organize all those various photos and got them uploaded to Picasa. Whew!

Now, we are going to leave today to drive to Albion for a Labor Day family picnic. Be back middle of next week.