Ohayou

Summer absolutely flew by for us.  I cannot believe it is October and River is nine months old.  This week Yegi called me at work to tell me how he stood up in the middle of the floor all by himself.  He has been up shuffling around all the furniture in our house and using anything that will slide as a walker.  I hate that I don't update this blog more often but it is hard enough to find time to sleep these days.  Below is a pictographical blog of recent events starting with my cousin Andrew's son Noah's 2 year birthday party.

Briarwood Ranch Safari Park...fort...reserve...cashe...compound...barnyard...  Neat place in the middle of nowhere with a funny name.

 Some of the exotic animals that can be seen at the "Ranch/Safari Park"

River and Mom enjoying the nice weather @ Noah's birthday party.

G-mom and Addalee in front of the Nickelodeon slime pond

Birthday boy and his Dad.

We were invited to Windy Gap as adult guests again this year by our friends Erin & Devan who run Anderson County's Young Life program.  Yegi and I both went to this camp when we were in high school and we still have as much fun as adult guests.  Last year Yegi was about 10 months pregnant and had trouble getting around so I would say this year was probably a little more enjoyable.  Below are some pics from our trip.

River's preferred mode of transport

Upper left:  Andrew & Wesley  Center: Garren in his car  Right: Garren's adopted dad Matt (explained below)

Matt & Sarah Beth have two of the most giving hearts, mostly due to Sarah's coaxing.  They brought  Garren, who is Andrew's extremely pregnant sister Rachel's son with them for the weekend so Rachel could relax and only have one kid (see husband Andy) to take care of...  sorry Andy, had to.

Anderson County went with my hometown Young Life group from the "Lakeway" area, so we also got to see our friends Scott & Brooke McMinn who run the Lakeway program.  Pictured above are Devan and Scott, aka Jean and Gene who provided the comedic relief.

Wes watching the field games and supporting the Vols in their crushing loss to Georgia.

The living room of our unbelievable accommodations for the weekend.

SB and Garren eating a late diner.  This kid can play all day and night.  Luckily Matt and Sarah were headed on vacation shortly after we finished this weekend.

Happy boy.

W in his Beatlejuice outfit.

Front porch that overlooks the lake where the zip line and blob are located.

Garren found the apple bowl and then proceeded to show us how far and hard he could throw them.

Front porch view.  Young Life owns many properties across the nation and in all the ones I've visited I have never seen a blade of grass out of place.  This is one of the most beautiful in my opinion.

Front porch at night.  Iso high, shutter speed 30sec, f2.8 <-- mostly for cousin Jewels.

Milky Way and a jet crossing the sky.

These pictures were just so cool to me I had to post them.  Its amazing just how many stars are in the sky (that we can see)!  The line is another jet crossing overhead, much faster than the one shown in the pic above.

Late night "visiting".

On the way home we stopped at my Mom's house to eat dinner and drop off River for a couple days while Yegi's parents (our normal babysitter on the days we both work) were in Japan.  I always want to show River as much as possible of the ole homestead because it is so much different from where we live in Knoxville.  I took him out riding around the fields and cow pastures where he was so relaxed he went right to sleep with his hands on the wheel.  Not wanting to wake him up I drove back to the house and laid the seat back where Yegi snapped this picture.

I love holding him while he falls asleep.  One thing that excites me about my size is that I'll be able to do this until he is at least 15...

So happy Grand-dad & Grand-Lad were back from Japan he decided to help them unpack.

That's it.  Good day, Konnichiwa, Oyasuminasa, or as my wife would say "Toyota".