The Annual Jimmy Buffett Party...

As most of you know, it's was time for the annual Jimmy Buffett 1/2 Birthday party. For those of you not familiar with this tradition...when Jerry and I moved to DC he decided that one of the things he wanted to do was to get our friends from work together at least a couple of times a year. If you don't live in this area you don't understand how difficult this can be...there is as much as a 2 hour drive from our house to some of our friends. People live on all sides of the city and commute in an hour to an hour and a half...so depending on where your house is you can be a pretty long way from those people you get close to at work. So, the idea of celebrating Jimmy Buffett's birthday was born...with one glitch...his birthday is December 24th. So, we decided to celebrate his half birthday, so every year towards the end of June we host the "Jimmy Buffett 1/2 Birthday party". Now that you are all up to speed with how this came to be...let me introduce you to the lead Parrot Head...Jerry Mraz.

At his party we have some food, so fun and some fellowship...

You will see evidence of this in the follwing pictures...


Some food...
....some fellowship



Some fun...

...some Wii playing
Some Nana and Papa practice...

Some more Wii playing, some with food....

...some ping pong playing, lead by the one and only Mr. Mike Pick...







Some people practiced for the future....

But mostly everyone just had a good time visiting, eating and playing games. Let's not forget celebrating the birthday of Jimmy...here's to another good year Jimmy!!!

Flashback to May...

OK, so we mentioned that we would do some flash backs to get everyone up to date on the happenings in the lives of the Mraz's this year. You have seen what we have been up to in June...so back to May. Well, the middle of May we made the big trek with Tanner's belongings back to Memphis. He had already gone back to get things going. Most of you know that Tanner lived with us for almost a year...something about a little blonde girl just kept drawing him back to Memphis. So, one moving truck and one long drive later Tanner's has his stuff back in Memphis. During this just fast trip to Memphis there was some furniture building that took place...

Then there was some watching Courtney play softball...

There was some fellowship and friendship and of course food...

Courtney really liked the cookie bars...thanks to Debbie for the receipe!!

And let us not forget the finished product...Tanner's apartment. I believe it turned out very nice and we hope that Tanner will be very happy there!!

Tanner has worked very hard over the last year to get himself where he is and we are so very proud of him. We wish him a great future and we know that the Lord has richly blessed him.

...Continuing on the journey through May...we traveled to South Carolina to see Jenny and Brandon for the Memorial Day weekend. Again we had a great time (Jerry and I have been blessed with some pretty wonderful kids). We went to the Zoo in Columbia. It was great, we saw cool animals, fed a few and had a really good time...

We went to a place called Charles Town Landing. It was really neat, we walked around and looked at the animals. We saw turkeys, they had their feathers all up and were making this cool druming sound. Then we went over and walked on the historic walk, it was really neat also. While we were there Brandon showed us how to find Doodle Bugs (If you look on Jenny's page you can see what one looks like).

We also went to Charleston. We walked around this art festival that was really cool. We ate lunch at Sticky Fingers (our most favorite place in SC to eat ribs) and we had ice cream.

So, after all that we jumped back into the car and headed back to Washington. First, we had to rest for a while and work some too. Then we had to start preparing for the big adventure to Tennessee. We had one other big adventure this year, that took place in April, so that will be the next "flashback" but that will have to be for another day!! Stay tuned....

After "Christmas"

Well, after the kids left we had to do something to keep from being sad...so we went to one of our favorite places...Cade's Cove. We were hoping to spot a bear, we didn't, but we did see a beautiful doe. We also saw several wild turkey, some wonderful flowers and breath taking scenery.

Then after that we drove into Gatlinburg, we walked around for a while looking in some of our favorite shops. We went to the Thomas Kinkade gallery and Jerry bought me a canvas for our anniversary...I was so excited! I can't wait to get it up on the wall!!

Then that evening we went to this show that we think is just a hoot, it's called "Sweet Fanny Adams". The cast is very small and it is great...Jerry has a story about the first time we went that he will have to tell...but we went, had a great time....Jerry even got to be part of the show again (here is the part where he has a story to tell.) (-;

Yes, he got to spend time with the pretty girl!

All of this happened on Monday (boy were we tired!), so then we went to what we refer to as "Our Cabin"...we stayed here for our honeymoon...thus special to us.

We really enjoy coming to spend time here. It is much smaller than where we stayed with the kids, but it's a great cabin.

Then on Tuesday, it was back to Dolly wood to ride our favorite roller coasters (multiple times) and see our favorite shows (Kingdom Heirs and Wings of America). About mid day we ran over and spent a couple of hours at Splash Park taking in the lazy river and a few water slides (no pictures this time) and finished the day back at Dollywood, getting in those last minute rides. What a great way to finish our time in the Smokies!!

Then finally it was time to part with our cabin, pack away all the great memories and head back to the beltway. It was great fun while it lasted and no doubt there will be much more fun to be had in the future...both there in the Smokies and the many other places the road will take us...rumor has it Jerry is putting together an adventure to North Dakota...that should be interesting!