Fun Times with Family, Part 1

This past week, Nathan and I headed to Knoxville to spend a couple of days visiting with lots of family!  Brian was working nights last week, so I wasn't seeing much of him.  Nathan and I packed up and headed out Wednesday morning.  The trip went well until about an hour away from Knoxville.  Nathan was tired and ready to get out of his carseat, so he proceeded to let me know it until he fell asleep about 10 minutes away from my grandparents' house. 

When we arrived, we were greeted by my grandparents, my mom, my Uncle Joe, Aunt Karen and cousin Kevin.  We hung out around the house for the rest of Wednesday, catching up and playing with Nathan. 

That night before bed, we gave Nathan a bath to wash off the sunscreen we had put on him while sitting out on the patio.  Gran and Aunt Karen bathed him in the laundry room sink, which worked out very well!

Later that evening my brother, James, completed his trek from Chicago and arrived safely in Knoxville.  It was so good to see him again!!

The next day we had two big outings between relaxing and chatting at the house.  The first was a trip to McKay's Used Book Store, where James, Mom and I all found lots of books to buy!  That evening we went out to eat at a new restruant (for me) called Aubreys.  We all had excellent food and everyone was willing and eager to share with each other.  I got a full rack of ribs and they were delicious, with a little kick from the sauce, along with homemade potato chips and ranch dressing.  Now that ranch dressing was probably the most delicious I had ever tasted, and after all of us gave it a taste and with much discussion, we came to the conclusion that the "secret ingredient" was horseradish mustard.  So I plan on trying that to see if I can duplicate the yummy-ness!

Late that night, Dad arrived from Georgia.  A lot of us were awake to greet him, and then we stayed up until midnight (!) talking and laughing in the playroom.  Thankfully, Nathan slept through the night that night (the best night of sleep while we were in Knoxville), so by morning I was almost recovered from the late evening.

Friday morning, James had to head back to Chicago.  But before he left, we got lots of family pictures.

In the interest of getting this posted, I'm going to stop right here.  I have more pictures and videos from the the visit that I will share later this week.