Catching Up... Granmar's Funeral

On January 14, my grandmother, known as Granmar died and went to be with Jesus.  She as my last living grandparent.  She would have been 90 on May 17th.  She wasn't the easier person to have a relationship with, but she loved Jesus, people, food, matching her handbags to her shoes, going on trips, and children.  Since I grew up overseas, I didn't know her as well as some of my cousins, or even as well as my younger siblings, who grew up mostly in America.  I'm happy Granmar was able to know all of her great-grandchildren.  She always wanted to hold them and always offered to babysit, even when she could barely walk!

Our whole family was able to be at the funeral and it was nice for the kids to see each other again after such a short time apart.

Playing dress up at Sani's.

Sweet Eamon and Liz.

Great pictures of Granmar and Grandaddy.  She loved flowers.

Cousins Lane, soon-to-be cousin Anthony, Erin, and Mitchell.

Cousins and siblings.

At the graveside.  We all sang "I'm in the Lord's Army" together.

My cousins Hayley's children stayed at Sani's
with our kids and babysitters.  They all did great!
This is Aly. She and Hadley share a birthday.

Morgan, aka Mo-mo.  She is a few months
older than Eamon.

Three year old cousins in the "hugglepod."

After the funeral, we had a great lunch at the Read House hotel.  We went to get our children and came back to a conference room to visit with our cousins.  Unfortunately, Patrick and I let the dog out right before we left and in an attempt to capture him, Patrick slipped and dislocated his shoulder.  Mom too him to the ER and he had months of physical therapy.

College cousins.

Mama cousins.

Cousins Elaine, cousin Martha, and Tate friend Marguerite.
Three red heads!  Martha passed away recently from ovarian cancer.

The girls were having fun drinking Gatorade and playing on
the tile floor.

Lots of pictures of Granmar's life.

Aunt Graham and cousin Judy.

Patrick in his sling.  Poor guy.

iPad sharing time.

Eamon like Arthur and I think Arthur got a little irritated with Eamon.

Friends

I just found this unpublished post of adorable pictures!

Birds!

We had a very icy day and the birds thought it was awesome.  I took a bunch of pictures of them and wanted to put them somewhere.  I saw several birds I wanted to get pictures of, but I wasn't fast enough, like the titmouse.  I also only got really bad pictures of the song sparrow, which is so cool looking.

Lady purple finch maybe?

Blue Jay

Male house finch

Carolina chickadee

Male cardinal

Male purple finch?

Morning dove and male cardinal

A couple of finches

Day Tripping to Chattanooga

Last Tuesday I hopped in the car and headed to Chattanooga with only a loose plan and knowing Sarah was going to meet us.  We went to the Chattanooga Zoo and hung out for a while, then went to the aquarium and got some ice cream.  At that point, we thought, what the hey, let's just go to Rock City!

Having memberships to places is awesome.

This crane thought Connor was good eating.

Connor was super into the peacocks.

Eamon saying hi to the alligators.

"Hey you jaguar!"

We attempted to go on the carousel with the boys, but Connor just wanted to sit and watch and Eamon was kind of freaked out the whole time.  I don't think we will be repeating that any time soon.

Sassy carrying Eamon to the aquarium.

"Look at my pink flower!"

Could he be cuter?

Eamon was so happy to see the penguins.

Playing with the cars we got at the zoo gift shop.

Connor thinks the tunnel is really awesome.

Snack time!

We got to Rock City around 4, and it was actually feeling pretty good outside! Brisk, but nice enough to walk the whole of the trail.  Connor started off walking, but I got him on my back pretty quickly.

Someone only had a 45 minute nap.

Connor said the red meant "stop!"

No squeezing for little short babies.

Playing with his toy from the aquarium gift shop.

So cute!

He's giving Sassy a hug.

See seven states!

I love this kid.

Group selfie!

Connor was really into the waterfall.

Thanks for the trip Sass!  I couldn't have done it without you!