Vacation

The long and winding road tha-at leads to your door... is named I-40... I've driven it before.

Okay, I'll stop piggybacking on the Beatles. Anyway, here's a visual trek through our vacation that really wasn't too long ago but feels like a different lifetime.

First we went to the mountains with Jason's side of the fam. There was much napping, card-playing, and outdoorsing. Jennifer even did a 20+ mile bike ride, and we are talking about real, live mountains. This was no cutesy-pie stroll. After we road the route in our car to check on her, my respect for Jennifer went from immense to hugemongeriffic.















Then the Lady Lutzes split from Daddy Lutz so we could spend another week with family and he could get back to work. Off with a cry - "South we go!" and "Ehh!" You can guess who said what. Rachel met up with us when we got to Oak Ridge. Though short, our visit at each of my grandparents' was sweet. Here's the star of the show with my PawPaw. She really liked his eggs - and who doesn't?! - but my favorite moment was her look of shock when the phone rang. I realize now she'd never heard a real bell. That's sad! Maybe that's not my favorite moment.

And here's the little celebrity with her second cousin, Aaron, who's also holding her third cousin, Tyler. Good luck with that one.






Finally, we made it to Kentucky - our last stop before pivoting toward home. Ahh, Lexington. A strange city it is... It's really old, and yet it has this very compacted, metropolitan feel. Of course, it is growing exponentially. I thought we'd get there and I'd feel better about my parents having moved, but instead I was jealous of the city. I wanted to call it names like "Parent Stealer" and "City of Meanies," but Thumper's momma says that if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. Rachel and I played tennis a few times, we looked at A LOT of houses (and that doesn't begin to describe how many Mom & Dad have seen), and we ate at some great restaurants. When you live in a city that has fast food and one decent chain restaurant, going out for a nice meal is a much bigger deal than for those of you who can order fresh vegetables at any meal that you please. Despite all the killer shopping, the best thing in Lexington was definitely my parents. I loved seeing them with Gabbygirl, and I think I'll sign off now before Ol' Blue Eyes starts crooning "Misty."