Special Visitors

Over the past few weeks, we've had several special visitors to our house. I haven't been able to take pictures of all of our friends, but wanted to give a special shout-out to them anyway.

Can you believe that we had the ICE CREAM MAN come by our house?!? I was so excited...and so was Scott! He had been doing yard work, and when I came outside to check on him, we both heard it at the exact same time....the beautiful melody that immediately took us back to our childhood. What a treat! This ice cream man sells lots of goodies--including pizza and tacos. I kept it simple and ordered 2 fudge popcicles. After paying, I realized that ice cream is not immune to inflation either. Oh well, it was worth the trip down memory lane.

Of course, I took a picture. Doesn't his ride look like an old short church bus? Kinda weird.

As for our over-night visitors, we recently had our good friend Gracyn stay with us while her parents were celebrating their anniversary (yeah!). Our special treat for Gracyn was a trip to Ya-Ya's for yogurt. (They charge by the ounce, so it rivaled the ice cream man.) Ya-ya's is on the Square, so we got to take Mo along. We had a blast with Gracyn!

We also had Mo's good friend and cousin, Sipsey, stay with us for several nights.

Doesn't Mo look thrilled? He does like it when Sipsey comes over, but he has to act cool about it.

Other visitors that I did not get a picture of include our friends, the Davis family. Their house got struck by lightening, so while they were dealing with insurance folks, they were nomads. We gladly had them stay with us for a night (and would have longer, but they got much fancier accommdations in a condo on the Square!). I wish I had snapped a pic because I just love their daughters, Raegan (7), Farryn (4), and Brooklyn (14 mo). Precious. Love them.

We also had my good friend, Duncan, stay one night with us as he was in town to sign his new contract with Oxford Middle School. I am estatic that the Duncan and Amber--with their wonderful daughters, Harper (3) and Sadie (1)--are moving to Oxford! Yahooooooooooooo! Duncan and I grew up together and became very close while at Alabama. It makes me happy to know that before long we'll be raising our children in our hometown. He and I had a great time catching up...and probably stayed up way too late for "old" people.

We had 1 more special visitor, but I'll save that for another post.

Surprise, Scott

After Scott's trip (which maybe one day he will post about), I took my Tagalog with me to pick him up from the airport. Sarah and Jeffrey were in a tennis tournament, so Hayes joined me for the trip to Memphis. Hayes LOVES LOVES LOVES airplanes, so I was hoping this would be a fun adventure for him. I totally forgot that you can't hardly see airplanes at the airport anymore--dang security! Oh well, he enjoyed people watching and thought the baggage claim was surely a ride for him. I hadn't told Scott that Hayes was coming, so he was indeed surprised to see both of us.

We didn't want Hayes to be too disappointed with his trip to the airport, so we thought we'd make it up to him at lunch. Being the great Uncle that Scott is (and after a quick probe from a great Aunt), we took Hayes to Hooter's for his first experience with "delightfully tacky yet unrefined" dining. The Hooters girls LOVED him. He wasn't too sure at first....but after being "Hooterfied" with "I love Hooters" stickers and balloons, he was one happy little boy!

What a great Uncle!

We made a very quick trip to Target--naturally--and walked out with 1 impulse item from the dollar bin and 1 VERY IMPORTANT purchase picked out by Hayes himself. He was so proud of it riding in his buggy. He thought it was pretty neat that the cashier actually played with him for a few seconds (or maybe his Aunt was impressed by her kindness!). And he insisted on holding it for the car ride home (from Memphis!).

2 seconds later:

30 seconds later:

A good day indeed!

Memorial Day

We had a great Memorial Day weekend--very spontaneous. I enjoyed making plans as we went--it was a nice change for my typical OCD scheduling! We started off the weekend heading to Booneville to spend a night with Scott's parents. It was very relaxing--an afternoon spent visiting and digging through family photographs and mementos. Scott collected several of his late grandfather's old tools to bring home with him. He was very close to his grandfather and was hoping to find a tool or two that immediately brought him back to his childhood when he would work alongside his grandfather in his shop. It made me happy to see his face light up when he found a couple of chalk plumb lines :)

Monday, after much talk all weekend long, we decided to go up to Memphis for the afternoon/night. Scott had an early flight out the next morning, so we thought it would be much more fun to head up early and make a trip of it. After the fact, I am thrilled that we did this--it would have been an awfully early morning to get him to the airport by 6 am driving from Oxford!

We caught a Memphis Redbirds baseball game--
Rocky the Redbird

The entertainment between innings was hysterical and non-stop. They had games and dances and tossed out t-shirts and hotdogs. Yes, I said hotdogs! Can you believe they loaded a hotdog in this "gun" and shot it into the stands? As if that wasn't funny enough, check out their costumes!

This is just a fun action shot. If you look closely you can find the ball.

Did you find it? It's to the left of the wire that is next to the WM Waste Management billboard/sign on the wall.

After the game, we strolled down Beale Street (which one should not do during daylight hours...especially sober)--

We weren't too impressed with the scenery, but we did tip the Beale Street Flippers--

We didn't quite see the exciting flips that were on America's Got Talent. Again, it was daylight and everyone was sober! I guess the "professionals" come out after dark when the tips are right. Look at this video--it's really cool!

After sampling a fancy beer (okay, I had Coors Light!) at The Flying Saucer, we met our friends Ian and Angela for a DELICIOUS dinner at Bar Dog Tavern. I mean, it was fantastic! Just what we wanted--good food, good atmosphere, good friends.