Well, we have just come through a week that included my birthday and also Grace's birthday. I remember hoping that Grace would be born on my birthday. Now that she is 12, that just simply would not have worked! She is awesome, but likes her own stuff and would not want to share her day. She started saying at the end of May "it's almost my birthday"!
I worked on my birthday (Thursday) and it was an extremely busy day. We are putting together an employer forum and I am doing much of the legwork. The day was spent contacting and inviting employers and business owners. That evening was spent grilling, relaxing, opening gifts and enjoying family time.
Grace's birthday was yesterday. Most of the day was spent just lounging around the house. Grace chose dinner at Ruby Tuesday's. Then it was back home to open presents and a fantastic ice cream cake made by Tina!
All in all it has been a great week! I am counting down the days until this Forum is over when I can breathe again.....
Weather today 87 degrees and absolutely beautiful!!!!
To celebrate Grace's birthday we decided to go to Dollywood and bring a couple of Grace's friends. We are about 20 miles from it so we bought season passes. Dollywood, for those who not followers of Dolly Parton or do not live in the Southeast, it is an amusement park replete with terrific rollercoasters (seriously) and of course canned Dolly music plays throughout. It was Memorial Day so we thought it would be croweded but with the threat of rain looming, it kept people away. We had a great time and the skies broke as soon as we were leaving Pigeon Forge. I have disparaged Pigeon Forge earlier but it is growing on me. We found the old part of town aptly named Old Mill. Very charming with a real working mill. 
A couple of days later one of Grace's friends had been out of town and had missed the day we went and wondered if it was too late to go. Of course not. So we went to again. Unfortunatly I was sick so I dragged myself around while the girls rode ride after ride. Once again, there was a threat of rain. We are prepared for such an event with disposable rain ponchos. It came down for a ten minute period during that time they decided to go on the water rides. They had a blast (literally). While we were there a huge family was enjoying the day. We found out that the had their own show called 18 kids and Counting(?) I have never seen it but Hope overheard them talking about it with other park patrons. We had great fun and plan on going back June 12 the Kratt Brothers from the PBS show, Zaboomafoo are here (this show I know). 
