Some Christmas Pictures

hiking at Elkmont

Sam swinging on a grape vine..

four generations...

me and my children

I got a broom for Christmas...

I told JMB that I wanted to go to Gatlinburg and get a new bottom for my broom for Christmas. We drove to The Glades Road shops and found the shop where we had bought the broom 30 year ago. David Ogle is the son of the man who made our broom. He said " I'll make it like new for you in about 30 minutes." We browsed at all the shops...there's a Jim Gray gallery next door. We ate lunch at Ma's Kitchen. It was like my grandmother's cooking...Good! It was a nice day...

Christmas Story

One Christmas season I came home from shopping and found glass on the floor in the living room. Someone had shot our window in front, and the bullet didn’t go all the way through…it just shattered the glass. I called the police to report it, and they showed up that night.

It was a cold night, and when they came in they seemed so surprised and amazed. The room was lit with Christmas tree lights . There were packages under the tree. A fire was blazing in the fireplace, The mantle was decorated with wreaths. Garvey was locked in the bedroom and he was whining to get out. One policeman sat down in John’s easy chair to fill out his report. They didn’t want to go back out in the cold world where most of the calls they got were bad.

I think they were reminded that there is a good world out there too.

Weekend in Gatlinburg

We decided to make an overnight trip . I said " There shouldn't be many people in Gatlinburg between now and Christmas , so we'll get a motel when we get there." I checked out several websites and we chose Midtown Lodge as our first choice. When we left Pigeon Forge we noticed a sigh on the side of the road that said PARADE TONIGHT ...Uh O....When we got to the city limits , we noticed lawn chairs lining the streets on both sides as far as we could see.

The clerk at Midtown Lodge said, "Sorry , we don't have a vacancy...you may find something up Airport Road."

We walked down the sidewalk and I said, " Well let's try Riverside Hotel ."

We stayed there years ago for a Square Dance Event. We walked into the lobby and saw a big sign ...THUNDERBOLT REUNION...World War II veterans were sitting around the big fireplace reminiscing.

The clerk said "I have one room left. It doesn't have a window or a balcony and it has one bed. I said "We'll take it", because it was a good location where we could walk outside and watch the parade. We moved in and then we walked up the street to our favorite Best Italian Restaurant..The salad and the vegetable lasagna and the garlic rolls are always good.

After we ate, we went to the Civic Center to the Glades Road Craft Show. All the shops were there with samples of their wares. One reason for our trip was to check out the Ogles broom shop to see if they would put a new bottom on my broom that I bought there years ago. They said to take the broom to the shop and they would do it for $10.00 . A new broom like mine would cost $87.00. That's our next trip.

We walked the streets and shopped . It was cold so we would stop by our lobby and sit by the fire and listen to war stories and then go again.

It was low 20's by 7:00 p.m. when the parade started, but we were wrapped up and we enjoyed the crowd and the parade.

We went back to the fire, and then to bed. Our room was quiet and warm..we got up at 8:00a.m. and went to Pancake Pantry for blueberry pancakes.

We shopped some more and then drove home in snow. It was falling and sticking to the trees and ground in the mountains, but no sign of it here.

We got a call from Todd and he said he was coming over to watch the football game with us. Gpa built a fire and I made boubblins...It was a nice evening.

It's December

We have a living Christmas tree this year..It's rosemary and it smells good.

It was just right...the first day of December was cold and it snowed off and on all day. We took fall decorations to the basement and brought up the Christmas lights. Our decorations are low key this year...lights and two ceramic Santa Clauses . We have a red wreath on the dining room table that Zachary made for us when he was about 6 years old.

Another beautiful fall day...

This is a picture of my new pot from Joppa Pottery in front of the Christmas Cactus...

We left the pool and decided to take a drive to look at the colors....We drove out Emory Road past House Mountain and turned onto 11W on the road to Rutledge. We turned left at Joppa School and followed a narrow mountain road up to Joppa Pottery. It's a little shack in the woods with beautiful pots on shelves and wooden tables out under the trees. The owner is a man named Macdonald Crosby. He has a long beard and a degree in art from UT. The pots start at $25.00 for a small one and most of them cost over $100. He sells all over the country. He took us inside and made a pot while we watched. He started with a wad of clay and it took him no time to shape the pot on his wheel. He fires them with a propane homemade kiln. He doesn't like the electric ones.
We drove thru Rutledge..(one red light). and stopped at Ritter Farm where we bought apples and cheese and fried apple pies and beautiful Grainger County tomatoes. Their restaurant was closed for the winter so we came back to Rutledge and ate at the Good Food Restaurant...We had delicious mashed potatoes and fried okra with steak and gravy.
The colors were beautiful on the mountains beside the highway with large farms along the highway. It was like Cades Cove with no traffic.

Cades Cove

Metcalf Bottoms....

We picnicked in the campground under this maple tree.

We drove the Cades Cove Loop... and acted like tourists...

We revisited this campsite which we discovered about 50 years ago when we stopped and had an impromptu wiener roast with toasted marshmallows over the fire. We had a very young David with us, and I thought we had found a most wonderful place, and that's when I fell in love with camping.

We renewed our vows today...

There was music and food...

Our Friends Were There

at Claudia's Wedding Chapel...

back yard

Birthday Party

Some more visitors arrived .

We took a walk before the football game.

There were a few buckeyes left..

We had Pappa Johns Pizza and blonde brownies .

visitor

We had a visitor this weekend. He arrived Friday night and ate bubblins with us. Saturday morning he replaced a light switch in the little bathroom.

Big Orange...

fall

fall decorations