Making Memories

We had such a great Memorial Day weekend with my (Lisa's) family. We spent a lot of time outside enjoying battlefields, waterfalls, creeks, trees, frogs, trails, sun, and shade. We did not enjoy the ticks as much but there were a few of those as well. Thank you so much to Mom, Dad, Natalie, Mitch, Juliana, and Alec and to Grandmother and Grandaddy as well, who all came and contributed to such a fun weekend. We had many delicious meals and with all those hands in the kitchen, cleanup was a breeze. It makes having lots of kids to help in the kitchen sound so appealing..... of course there are many other appealing reasons to have children! Sonora adores her Aunts and Uncles and loved giving her Grandmam and Grandaddy lots of slimy kisses, is there a better kind of kiss? I submit that there is not.  

I think that one of my favorite parts of the weekend was our trip to Greeter Falls in Tennessee. The drive was lovely and a rousing game of 20 Questions over the walkie talkies between the two cars helped to keep us entertained. If you are ever looking for some good 20 Questions topics may I suggest "Baklava" and "Alan Shepherd" as tricky options. 

Once we reached the park we had a fantastic hike to the falls and cooled off by wading in the rather chilly pools and rivers below the waterfall. It was so much fun. I couldn't believe how much Sonora loved being in the freezing cold water. Her little toes felt like ice cubes when we pulled her out but she just couldn't get enough of the water. My mom has always said that kids do not have nerve endings.

That evening was also a highlight as we had dinner at a fun Italian restaurant just up the hill from the walking bridge in downtown Chattanooga. We ended the evening by polishing off mom's birthday cake from Marble Slab Creamery, de-lish! We extended the birthday celebration to this weekend though the big day was last Saturday. There were so many other highlights from this weekend including two Larkin nights (listening to my Dad read the most recent chapters of the book he is currently writing) - a big time family favorite; listening to the kids quote the entire chapter of Romans 8 from memory complete with actions- very encouraging; watching Natalie perform Love is a Fallacy by Max Shulman - fantastic; picnicking in the park - even more fun with Grandmother and Grandaddy; and so much stimulating conversation and laughter. A truly wonderful weekend, the only thing that could have made it better is if Clint and William could have joined us. William did join us via telephone and is the person on the other end of the phone that Natalie is holding to her ear in the family pictures that we took on the bridge.

A perfectly fabulous weekend, thank you to everyone involved!

(I would like to add more pictures but it has taken quite some time to attach the three that I have included. Perhaps I can get my fabulous and tech savvy husband to post them all on our website. So stay tuned...)