Celebrating Granny

This weekend we went to Knoxville to celebrate both the Labor Day holiday, and also the 92nd birthday of James' grandmother. Granny is not only still living independently in her own home, but she is currently writing her memoirs and has filled several legal pads with stories from her life. Her recall of detailed memories is absolutely stunning. Another interesting fact about Granny- she worked well into her 70's (and even a bit into her 80's I believe) and spent many of the last years working at Wendy's, which she loved.

(James was in charge of the candles, can't you tell?)

James' mom served dinner to thirteen of us on Sunday evening, and after, there were plenty of desserts to choose from, as you can see from the spread in front of me. Cake, ice cream, cookies, muffins. Yum.



Granny received a nice stack of her favorite thing: Wal-Mart gift cards! Granny is an avid reader and loves to go to the store and pick out new paperbacks. She particularly likes Debbie Macomber and Karen Kingsbury.

She also feeds the host of wildlife in her yard and will use the gift cards to stock up on sunflower seeds for the birds and dog food for the raccoons. While we were visiting her at her home, two raccoons came up on the carport and sat peeking in the window, looking for Granny. They were hungry! She says she can't hide from them, no matter where she is at in the house, they go to a window and find her!



Later on we gathered to play a few rounds of Texas Hold'em, with James' dad serving as dealer. James won the first "tournament" and I won the second round. It was a lot of fun to have four generations celebrating under one roof.

After all the festivities, James and I settled in with his folks for the evening, visiting and watching the downtown fireworks on TV. We could hear the booms outside, even though downtown is nowhere near his parents' house. It still practically rattled the windows. The reports were that almost half a million people were down on the riverfront watching the show. That's one crowd I would not want to be in the middle of!

Hope everyone had a great holiday!