Storm Damage

We had a bad thunderstorm this afternoon. Below is the damage our backyard sustained!

J is surveying the situation................
He tried to pull the limb down with no success. I think we may need to borrow Dad's chainsaw!

Escaping the "Tri-Cities"

Earlier this week, Steph and I went to Hillsboro Village to eat dinner at Bosco's. We talked about how we used to go anywhere we wanted to when we first moved to Nashville. Now, we only stay in the "Tri-Cities". This is the area consisting of Donelson, Hermitage, and Mt. Juliet. We have decided to venture out and try new restaurants, shopping, and attractions in other parts of the city. Today, we ventured out to I Dream of Weenie.

I Dream of Weenie is an old VW van that has been converted into a Hotdog restaurant. It is located in East Nashville on Woodland St.


The food was very good. I got a chili-slaw dog and Steph got a Rebel Yell turkey dog with Chow-Chow on it. The only drawback was there is no place to eat at I Dream of Weenie. Metro Nashville considers them a mobile vendor and does not allow them to have tables. You can see our food as we sat down to eat in our car. We would go back there again to eat.
Look for more of my Escaping the Tri-Cities blog entries. We have recruited Will and Ashley, our friends who live in Mt. Juliet, to join our Escape Club. We hope to try a new restaurant each month. We have 2 rules. 1. It can not be in the Tri-Cities limits. 2. We should not have eaten there before. Until then...Good Eats!

I Quit

It's 12:15. It took me over 3 hours, and right now I don't think I will ever play again!

Who Doesn't Love Ice Cream?

Real Simple named these the best 4 Best Ice Cream Pops.
www.realsimple.com :
"No matter your age, it’s hard to beat the pleasures of a rich, luscious pop. Here are the four winners that froze out the competition"

You Know You're From Tennessee When:

You've never met any celebrities -- other than Fred Thompson.
"Vacation" means going to the family reunion.
You know all four seasons: Almost Summer, Summer, Still Summer, and Christmas.
You laugh when people from anywhere north of Tennessee try to say or spell "y'all."
It's "Mar-vull," not "Mary-ville."
It's "Knox-vull," not "Knox-ville."
A toboggan is a hat, not a sled.
You butter your hot biscuit by cutting it open, putting a slab of butter inside, and closing it back up again.
Pigeon Forge is not pronounced with a French accent.
Gatlinburg does have an "L" in it and it should be pronounced.
Sales tax is 9.75%.
You shop at Wal-Mart for groceries, not at a grocery store.
You don't drive in Knoxville on game day. EVER.
You or your friends chew.
You can't remember the last time you saw snow.
You know when Elvis Presley Day is.
You know all of the words to "Rocky Top."
You avoid going anywhere near Bristol Motor Speedway on race weekend.
You think it's worth it driving to Alabama just to save 1.25% on the sales tax.
You eat "dinner" at noon and "supper" in the evening.
Your Wal-Mart has specific parking spots for horses and buggies.
You use "commode" in conversations and absolutely no one knows what you're talking about.
You barely get snow days because there's hardly ever any snow. Better yet, you get snow days if your local weather stations predict even the slightest bit of snow!
You and everyone you know goes to one vacation spot: Panama City.
You know how to do the watermelon crawl.
Everything is COKE, and if you don't like it, tough. Ex: "You want a COKE?" "Sure." "Which kind?" "Dr. Pepper."
You're in a Carhartt jacket one day, shorts the next, and no one thinks anything about it.
Everyone you know owns a truck, and at least one of those trucks is just painted with primer or more colors than the rainbow.
You measure distance in minutes, not miles.
You drive through a rich neighborhood and see the wannabe redneck kids with their brand-new Fords and their designer holey jeans and cowboy hats.
Boomsday in Knoxville is equal to New Year's Eve at Times Square.
Knoxville becomes the third largest city every Saturday in the fall.
Sweet tea is THE DRINK...no questions, no exceptions. Most people from Tennessee begin drinking sweet tea even before they can drink out of sippy cups. Iced tea is appropriate for all meals, and you start drinking it when you're two. We do like a little tea with our sugar!
You've ever had to switch from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day.
You use "fix" as a verb. Example: "I'm fixing to go to the store."
All the festivals across the state are named after a fruit, vegetable, grain, insect, or animal.
You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.
You know what a "DAWG" is.
You carry jumper cables in your car -- for your OWN car.
You own only four spices: salt, pepper, Tabasco, and ketchup.
The local papers cover national and international news on one page but require six pages for local gossip and sports.
You think that the first day of deer season is a national holiday.
You find 100 degrees Fahrenheit "a little warm."
Fried catfish is "the other white meat."
You describe the first cool snap (below 70 degrees) as good pinto-bean weather.
You're convinced you don't need driver's ed -- your father's and uncles' pickup trucks were training enough.
Possums sleep in the middle of the road with their feet in the air.
There are 5,000 types of snakes, and 4,998 live in Tennessee.
There are 10,000 types of spiders. All 10,000 live in Tennessee plus a couple no one's seen before.
If it grows, it sticks; if it crawls, it bites.
Onced and twiced are words.
It is not a shopping cart; it is a buggy.
Fire ants consider your flesh a picnic.
People actually grow and eat okra.
"Fixinto" is one word.
Backards and forwards means "I know everything about you."
Jeet? is actually a phrase meaning "Did you eat?"
You don't have to wear a watch because it doesn't matter what time it is. You work until you're done or it's too dark to see.

St. Louis

Jay and I were in St. Louis Wednesday - Saturday. I've uploaded a few of our pics.

This was the view from our hotel room window. They didn't have the room we had reserved when we arrived on Wednesday night, so we were upgraded to the a suite the next two nights with a great view of the Arch.

We rode to the top of the Arch while we were there, and here is the city view from the top. It takes 4 minutes to get the top in a VERY small tram car that fits 5 people into a tight squeeze.
A museum is located under the Arch and it's free to the public. The exhibits all relate to the history of westward expansion. Below you can see me contemplating my ancestry.
We of course took a tour of Busch Stadium, where the St. Louis Cardinals play. We also went to watch a game.
A view of the Arch and the city from the mighty Mississippi. We did a riverboat cruise down the Mississippi River and Jay took this pic from the boat.

There is lots of free stuff to do in St. Louis if anyone is looking for a vacation that isn't too far from home. We also went to the Missouri History Museum that had lots of cool exhibits (free), we did a tour of Anheuser-Busch bottling plant (free), toured the old courthouse -that you can see from the hotel room pic and the Arch pic- where the Dread Scott and Virginia Minor (women's right to vote) trials were held (free), we didn't have time to go but the St. Louis Zoo is free, too.

A Boy Can Never Have Too Many Pas!

Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails. . .

Yesterday while Parker was playing in his Elmo sprinkler, he found a toad.

He picked it up and examined the poor thing and it make a little chirping noise, maybe because it was terrified and maybe because it was being held a little tight, but Parker must have thought it was a cell phone because. . .

He answered it!

Hello!

No toads were harmed during the photo session that led to this post!

New High Score

I am proud to announce that the high Bubbles score no longer belongs to Peanut, but to me!
He is at this moment trying to re-gain his title. And yes, we have too much time on our hands!

Bubble Addiction

If I caused you to become addicted to playing Bubbles when I posted the widget at the bottom of the page I'm sorry! Peanut just made this score and wanted to brag and challenge anyone to beat his best score. He wiped out the board and it doubled his score and ended the game. Good luck!
And if you want to look for more interesting widgets just check out www.widgetbox.com

Pauly Bear and Snoogums

This ad was actually in the classifieds section of the Mt. Juliet paper this week. Seriously.

Kelsey and Parker Share

Kelsey is not too fond of Parker, because he is too rough and loud for her, but sometimes they share things!

Kelsey lets Parker use her house.

Parker shares his snacks.

Check out the bottom of the page, I put a new widget for a game called bubbles.

Another Snake Tale

On Tuesday night we were visiting with Parker and Tracie at Stephanie and Jay's house. Parker wanted to play in the backyard and I was trying to get him to be still long enough to make some pictures. Peanut noticed a large lizard on the fence and of course, we went to investigate. The lizard jumped down and ran away and that's when we noticed on the ground was a skinny but long chicken snake. I suppose he was lying peacefully in the shade until we came along and caused a disturbance, then he decided to climb the tree he was lying under.
Here he is:

The moral of the story is if you see a lizard on a fence, you better look to see if there is a chicken snake trying to catch him!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Pool Fun

Tracie tried to teach Parker to jump into the pool this morning. He was much more interested in just watching her do the jumping. I had a pretty good time watching her jump as well, she even attempted a flip or two.

Tracie wasn't jumping fast enough so Parker tryied to push her in.

Tracie riding an imaginary bike.

A Tractor Tale

This morning I went out to get on my tractor and mow. As I got on a mouse came out from under the hood. It jumped off onto the other tractor and ran away. I started mowing and I mowed down the driveway and around the pond and had been working for about an hour. As I was driving under the apple tree in the yard, something stuck its head out by the fuel tank. At first I thought I was seeing things! But it kept coming farther. So, I threw my tractor out of gear and jumped off. By this time it was probably two feet out on the hood. I left the tractor running and the 4 foot chicken snake crawled across the hood and fell off. It slithered away through the grass. I let it live to hunt another day. I got back on the tractor with my heart beating really fast and came to tell Delilah the story.
The moral of the story is, if you see a mouse come out from under your hood, check to see if a snake is trying to catch it!

There were no pictures of this actual event, but these pictures show how big the snake was and where it came out!