Walking in Memphis

I must remember to upload my photos in reverse order, this is from Saturday at Tupelo Buffalo Park. We got to feed the animals including the buffalo you can see in the picture. We were the only visitors there, obviously not that popular a destination so arriving at 9am was not required. Never mind, we had fun and were able to go and meet Tim & Deanna at her parent's house for lunch. They live in Hamilton, Alabama which is about half hour away from Tupelo. We had home made pizza and breadsticks for lunch - all made by Deanna at her father's pizzeria , Dinelli's Pizzeria in Hamilton (just in case you are ever passing through).

Above you can see the King of Rock n Roll looking cool, and no, we didn't buy the glasses afterwards, we rather cheekily put them back on the shelf after the photo.

That's Lily and I in our Elvis poses outside of Graceland. I think we all found it a bit of a disappointment and not being Elvis fans made it all the more of a let down. The house wasn't nearly as big as I was expecting and to add to the cramped feeling it was very overcrowded with crazy tourists (and us.) Although we did get a bit of a laugh at some of the fans.

Memphis is right on the border with Arkansas so we drove over the bridge and into Arkansas so we could tick another state off of our itinerary. I think its a bit of a cheat as we only stayed there for about 20 minutes while the children played in a small park before going to our accommodation for the evening. I didn't get a postcard so will have to go back if I want to count it for my stats. As it was Thanksgiving Day not even the visitors centre was open.

This is the famous 'Beale Street' in Memphis. As you can see it was VERY quiet. A poor choice for spending Thanksgiving Day. We had been warned by everyone who has already visited that there really isn't much to do in Memphis. Well, if you combine that with visiting on Thanksgiving Day there is nothing at all to do in Memphis. Oh, well, live and learn.

Below is a video Tom took in the car while we were travelling and they were bored. There is no sound unfortunately as it's taken with the old camera which Tom & Lily have the use of. Perhaps a career in film beckons.

Happy Thanksgiving

On Saturday Nick went round to Tim's for the day to watch the Ashes on DVD so Tom,Lily and I went to the cinema to see 'Bolt'. This was quite funny and we saw trailers for a couple of good movies coming out next month. When we got home from that we watched High School Musical, well, Lily & I watched it and Tom played with his Lego. Thought we had better watch the first one since HSM 3 is now out. Quite liked it so number 2 is now on order through Netflix. We are currently waiting on the Peter Sellers Pink Panther to arrive, I reckon Tom will like it very much.
On Sunday we took Tom golfing, he did really well for his first time out on the course and is keen to play again. Apart from that we have done nothing of note this last week. I did almost kill us all on Monday when I put the gas fire on and forgot to open the chimney vent. Big oops. Luckily I happened to mention that I thought I could smell something 'like something is burning' and Nick said - did you open the chimney? This happened a couple of times last year as well but I normally noticed the smell immediately, not this time, so all the windows and doors got opened up for a half hour or so to make sure there was no nasty gas left in the house.
The children finish school today for their Thanksgiving holiday, they look like they could do with a break from school, especially Lily, she looks really wiped out. No early morning school run for me tomorrow which is good as we have friends round for dinner tonight....

Brrr, its cold (for a change)

No photos to show but we had a fabulous lunch with friends on Sunday.
Tim & Deanna came round with Willa and Ethan and Quan & Dustin came round with Dustin, Seth, Kelie & Rian so we had a full house.
Having learnt from past lunches I decided to just serve the children with hot dogs or hamburgers otherwise no one eats anything - is British cooking that different from American?
The adults had lamb with spuds and roasted veg so that was easy as it was all cooked in the oven and there was no stove top shenanigans to worry about. Pecan pie was for pud (obviously not homemade) and then cheese for afters. All served up with copious quantities of red wine. I finally feel fully recovered from the afternoon.
I felt very tired on Monday but did manage to play tennis and have a 15 minute run on the treadmill. I think I lasted until 8.30 before calling it a day and going to bed.

Yesterday it was really cold here and today the temperature did actually drop below freezing, and when you are not used to it anymore it feels even more cold than it should do. The kids got hot milk in their cereal this morning to cosy them up. After school we had a trip to the uniform shop to buy Tom some long sleeved shirts for school and I bought them both vests this morning when I was out.
Tom & I saw a coyote this afternoon while we were driving to the uniform shop. Poor Lily didn't manage to see it though so we had to play down the excitement factor, well I thought it was exciting anyway - I've never seen a coyote before, have you?

Saturday

Yesterday was Tom's school play - Let's Hear it for America. He played 'child 1' and had four lines to say extoling the virtues of the good ole US of A. It was all very patriotic and american but the children all did well and it does them good to get up on stage in front of all the parents. Two of the children had solos to sing and both were very good.
I haven't done very much this week although I have started my christmas shopping.

Nick and Tom went to some drag races this morning, they rev the engines so much they actually do wheelies when they start the race. Caz, it looks like it was actual drag racing as opposed to what we went to see one day a long time ago in Crail. Funny.

Remembrance Sunday

Tom and Ethan looking very smart at the Remembrance Sunday service yesterday.

Ray, Nick, Shaun and Anne-Marie.

Bethan, Jess & Lily.

You don't get many Remembrance Sundays back home that look as glorious as this. It was a beautiful day and a decent turnout at the cemetery for the service.

Tom had his last game of football on Saturday morning, his team reached the semi finals but they lost 2-1. He is signed up for the indoor season starting in December and has agreed to cut back the gymnastics to one day a week. Kate and I had a really good game of golf on Thursday last week, the weather this time of year is just perfect for outdoor play/sport. Not what you want to hear if you are reading this in rain lashed Britain, I know and I'm sorry but it really is lovely here just now. Come and visit.

I am trying to get all my christmas shopping done at the moment and am fairly organised, looking forward to putting up the tree next month.

Monday again

Well, we had a lovely weekend up at Oak Mountain State Park, you can see our cabin in the picture above - just up the hill behind the pavillion. It's very near to Birmingham so only takes about an hour and a half to drive there. This is great as as much as I like our weekends in Destin the three and a half hour drive to get there is a pain in the butt.

This is the view from our cabin veranda early on Saturday morning. We went shopping in Birmingham in the morning and then Tom & Nick spent the afternoon biking around the park while Lily and I went for a walk in the forest around the side of the lake. Sunday morning was spent doing the same and then we packed up and headed home for a very late lunch at Carrabas. We all had big pasta meals and spent the rest of the day trying to digest the food - I for one was exceedingly full up and had to lounge for the rest of the day.

You will have to ignore my comments on the video because you can see the jump after all.

It's a very small jump, but it's a definite jump.