Happy New Year!

We got home last night from our short trip to Tennessee. We went up there to see friends from Hawaii. They were the first people I met when I moved to the island and it was SO great to see them all. The drive there wasn’t bad at all and we will definitely be doing it again. We took Rik with us too which was interesting! The first night there I was watching him eat a huge bone on the back porch and turned away for 2 seconds to tell Layla to get her shoes. In those 2 seconds I wasn’t watching he got up and walked to the end of the deck. I ran out just in time to watch him walk straight off the edge into the pool. Poor blind/deaf dog. It was COLD too. Thankfully he is a MUCH better swimmer than he is a walker and made it back over to the ladder where one of the kids helped me yank him out. He spent the rest of the evening on a padded bench by the fire warming up. He got used to that pretty fast! Now here is a quick photo recap of our few days up there.

Night One:

Layla makes a new friend. None of us at met Emily yet. She is 2.5 and was born after they all left Hawaii. She also discovered a love for this PlayStation dancing game!

See this boy? He was 2 when I met him and 4ish when they moved. Seeing him all big was crazy.

January 1st.

We went to Steak and Shake! I have never heard of this place until I posted on Facebook that I wanted steak from a drive through. Someone mentioned this place and I had no idea what it was. When I saw one there we decided to stop for lunch. And it was good!

There were buffaloes…buffalo? But we were moving too fast 😛

Rik was a big fan of laying by the fire

This is how our nights were. Hanging out around the fire catching up on the past couple of years

Layla stayed on the top bunk and loved it. Until she hit her head while trying to lay down are I had told her about 50 times she needed to go to bed.

On our last morning there we were there Jenifer had made a huge breakfast. Eggs, bacon, sausage, homemade biscuits, and chocolate gravy which I had never heard of before but it was SO good. Everyone was over again to hang out again before we headed out.

After a huge lunch at a BBQ place called Fat Mike’s we got back on the road to head home. We had to stop for gas and to turn in a scratch ticket that Thomas won $3 on 😛 He got more so we scratched them before we drove off.

Layla was stuffed in the back seat

I lost.

And then we were on the road again. We went through GA for about 5 seconds before hitting Alabama

Thankful for the parts of the drive when the sun was behind the trees

We would have been home around 8 but got a bit distracted when we stopped at the Bass Pro Shop on the way home. T wanted to compare the one near us with the one he went to in MO. It was a REALLY cool store and we will be going back for sure when we have more time and no Rik in the car. As it was we spent about an hour there. Layla LOVED it. Everything she saw made her eyes bulge and her jaw drop 🙂 We made it home around 9 and the other dogs were happy to see us again. Now today I have plans to wash clothes that smell like a fire and vacuum up the dog hair all over the house.

Also, a reminder that I started a 365 Photos blog at GirlMeetsCam365 that I just got caught up from the past 2 days.