Vacation 2009 -1

Brad and Amy Bellamy on the porch of the Grand Hotel on Macknac island
Tim and me

Our vacation started with picking up Brad and Amy Bellamy in Detroit on our way to Mackanac Island. The island is beautiful. It has an airport, horses and carriages, and bikes on it. The only other motorized autos are fire and police. We ate dinner the first night at the Grand Hotel. It has the longest porch in the world and if you are not eating there are staying there ($600/night) and no we didn't stay there...it cost $10 to walk on the porch! The dinner was so so but very expensive...glad I had the experience once. You had to dress for dinner as you can tell by the photos.
The next day we went to Fort Macknac and saw enactments of what life was like there in the early days. It was all quite interesting. The tour guide said that if you went in every fudge shop on the island and had a sample of fudge, you could eat a pound and a half free in one day.

For those of you who are really interested in more photos and vacation info, see Tim's facebook or my facebook. There's lots of more photos there!

Vacation 2009-2

Laura, John, Nigel, and Tim at the Toronto Zoo. What a fun day it was!
Tim and Nigel at the pay ground the next day. Nigel loves to dig in the sand!
Laura and me at the park.

We went to Toronto on Sunday. It was really good to see Laura, John and Nigel. I think I made a mistake though letting Tim go with me. He played and played with Nigel so I fear that Nigel will favor his Poppa Tim over his Grammie Tammie! We went to the zoo the first day and to the park the second day. Nigel is almost walking and he knows what he wants and where he wants to go. That child loves being outside! Laura and Nigel are coming on Aug. 1 and will be here til Aug. 11. I can hardly wait!
Hanging out with Lisa French in NYC
Live Bait was a neat place to eat with a southern flair that Lisa took us to for lunch.

We went to NYC for a couple of days. My Old-himers is kicking in...when we got there, we realized that I had made hotel reservations at 2 different hotels to arrive on two different days so we had to call and cancel one of them and then I realized that I had gotten show tickets for the same night. So we went to the Jersey Boys theatre and begged the guy to change our tickets. He took mercy on us and gave us two seats on the VERY FRONT row that he said were hard to get rid of anyway because you have to look up all the time...like we really cared! It was great! The language at the beginning of the show was a little rough, but the music was fabulous! The first night we also ate outside at a neat little cafe a couple of blocks away from the Ed Sullivan theatre and we listened to Paul McCartney sing throughout our dinner (eben though we didn't realize that it was really him until afterwards!). The next day, we met Lisa French at Madison Square Park for a free concert by Trout Fishing in America and we had a great time! They are really a kids' group, but Tim and I are groupies anyway! Then we ate lunch with Lisa and had ice cream at the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park. We were told that was one thing you could not miss there and the ice cream was pretty good (but not quite as good as gelato...but Laura did take us to a place in Toronto that was just about that good!). On our way to see 9 to 5 that night, the streets were all blocked off because Obama was in town so we had to find a round about way to get to the theatre, but we made it.
The flight home was the worse part of the trip...had 30-50 mile an hour headwinds and weather to deal with so it took us 9 hours to fly home! I was really ready to get out of that plane, but thankful to the Lord for our safety!

Father's Dad

I know it's been a long time since I've posted, but today I'm thinking about my dad...he was a wonderful man and I would give anything to be able to give him just one more hug and tell him how much I love him. He died in a motorcycle accident in 1983 (I think it was 1983). I can still see him sitting at the kitchen table drinking his coffee and talking to all the neighbors that stopped by. I remember the thrill it was the night he was baptized into Christ after so many years of mama taking all four of us to church and praying so hard that he would decided that he want to put on Christ in baptism. I remember going to town with him and every one throwing up a hand and calling hello to Tracy and being proud that he was my dad. I remember him making me chop cotton to earn money for things I wanted then him giving me not only the pay for the work but the money for what i was working for anyway. I remember his eyes lighting up when he would see Tamara Lynn or Laura or Joe(y) for he loved his grandchildren. You will always be my "diddy" and I will always hold a special place for you in my heart.

I was also blessed to have a step-daddy for 20 years. He never had children of his own so we were the children of his heart and he treated each of us and each grand child as if they were his very own. Our first Christmas with him was more fun...He was the biggest child of all there because he'd never had a big Christmas with a big family and it was so fun to watch his face and see the joy there. He took great care of our mother in her declining years and for that I will forever be grateful. He died of cancer in Dec. 2007. Mama died in Feb. of 2008. She lost her will to live after she lost him.

You know the old saying that anyone can be a Father but it takes someone special to be a daddy...well, thank you, Lord, that I have been blessed to have two daddys in my life. Here's to you: Tracy Skelton and Mutt Kemp!

Colorado Trip

This is the ceramic mug that I got served hot tea in in first class on the way to Colorado. I got bumped to first class for some reason. On the way home, Tim did, too. I had a lot of fun laughing at him when we got home because he didn't realize that all the food and drink in first class was free and he only had a cup of coffee. I had hot tea and sparking water and great snacks!
This is the guys waiting on Cathy and Noah to arrive.
Angie waiting.
The view from our condo. It was beautiful!
A bison light switch plate in the condo were we stayed. I wanted one like it really bad but I never got the chance to go shopping!

Canada Trip

These are the flowers Tim sent me for Valentines. I got to enjoy a couple of days before I left for Canada. They were still pretty when I got home but didn't last too much longer. It's the thought that counts!
At the first of the month, Tim went skiing in Utah on his annual man trip so I went to Canada to see Laura, John, and of course, Nigel. He's growing so much and getting to have such a sweet, cute personality!
I arrived on Sunday night and stayed all day Monday and Tuesday and left on Wednesday morning. John and Laura went out for coffee with friends on Monday afternoon and after Laura taught her class on Monday night, John met her for dinner and I got to keep Nigel all by myself. He was such a sweetie.

These "snow pictures" are for you, Wil. They were having a heat wave while I was there (36-40 degrees) and the snow was yucky and melty, but in some spots on the streets it was piled up as high as me! I could hardly believe how much was still piled up when it was so warm. Nigel likes to ride in his stroller almost standing up. That way he can see everything around him and the cold doesn't seem to bother him at all. He loves to be outside. On Tuesday, Laura and I went out for lunch. Nigel loved riding around but he didn't like it one bit when she tried to lay him back so he could sleep...he fell asleep just like he was! I'll have to go back in April so I can see them again. Can't let Nigel grow up without knowing his Grammie Tammie!

Family Gathering

Terri, Diana, Joy, Tammie
Lynn and Tim

My cousins, Joy and Lynn Rockenbach, from Little Rock and Terri Watkins from Merigold, MS came up today along with my sister, Diana from Corinth. It was so nice to be together and visit and have fun and replay the memories from our childhood and make new ones WITHOUT being at a funeral! It seems like in the last few years, that's the only time we get together any more. We need to have more fun times like this! Finding a place to eat lunch seemed to be a comedy of errors...First we went to the DMC Soul Food Cafe...it was closed so we decided we'd have Italian and we went to Polla Pasta. It's open every day for lunch except...you guessed it...Saturday, so we finally ended up at J Alexander's. We had a great time! We just need to gather more cousins and do it more often!

Favorite Video

This has to be one of my all time favorite videos. I can definitely identify with this woman! I think my favorite line is "Well, we didn't know it's be YOU! We were hoping for someone with a JOB!"

Lost Generation

I really like the message of this youtube video!