Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts

Monday, December 19, 2011

Hey Ya"ll!

The Martin family decided to take Grandma on a weekend trip to Savannah and Charleston before Christmas. We all took off from work that Friday so we would have 3 whole days to drag off and get away! We left as soon as Jerry got off from work and headed to Savannah! We didn't make it far before we had to stop and eat before we had to make the long drive after working all day! Ha! Akins in Bell! We ate and loaded back up to arrive in Savannah around midnight!
Friday morning we got up early! (Grandma likes to get up at out of the room early)
We all loaded up and ate a quick breakfast at Cracker Barrell before driving into Savannah to spend our day walking around the parks and shopping! Oh and don't let me forget our early supper at "The Lady and Sons"
Uncle Jerry giving Caroline a ride to the SCAD Store
It was quite the long walk, but a beautiful one!
Jamie and Jerry set out to find it while we sat at Starbucks enjoying a nice cup of coffee! They got lost several times but finally found their way through the help of the iphone gps.
My sweet husband and his sweet momma!
I love how close they are and how funny Jamie is with his momma! (Poor Nana...he aggravates her all the time....but I don't think she would take anything for it!)
Okay so....here come the Hey Ya'll part.....We pull up to drop off Grandma at "The Lady and Sons" and the line is wrapped around the building! So we go in the restaurant and low and behold guess who is there signing her new cookbook???? Paula and Bobby and Jamie!!!!! Talk about excited I was soooo excited I could hardly enjoy my meal. After eating I got a yellow wrist band and bought her new cookbook and stood in line for 2 1/2 hours to get to meet her and have her sign some things. It was a neat experience and I was so glad Aunt JoAnn and Mrs. Virginia stood in line with me to meet her. They were so nice and friendly!
Notice the background of were we were standing in line? The blinds were falling down...we were in an alley that was by run down buildings but....who cared we were going to meet Paula Deen so it was worth the wait and scenery for that matter!
My awesome husband saw how excited I was and bought me a cookbook to have signed by her!
Thank you Honey!
While waiting in line the rest of the Martin's sat on this bench waiting...patiently on us.
Grandma couldn't get over why we would wait in line to meet Paula Deen? "I just watched her on TV last week she said?" She even said to Jamie..."Tell Franne lets go...I will sign her cookbook!" lol
I LOVE this picture of Nana and her boys!!!!!
My family that God blessed me with!
They really get sick of my camera I drag with me everywhere but despite that they still love me!
The Martin Family!
This was the picture without Uncle Joe
He had to circle the park to loose the cop so he could illegally park the car in the road to RUN get in the family picture! Way to go... Uncle Joe!
Can you tell I loved this picture? I uploaded it twice??
Franne, Nana and Jamie
Paula was so kind and sweet! Even after all the fans she meet and signed books she still gave us that beautiful smile and greeted us with her Southern Hospitality.
She really is a beautiful Lady!!
Umm.... yes I love this picture!
The boys were super nice and very real to talk with!


After all that! I get outside to regret not getting a picture with Nana and all of us girls! So I go back through the exit way to ask Bobby if we can get one more picture! (The sign clearly stated NO personal cameras but I asked Bobby and he said sure and handed it to his professional photographer and here it is...a picture with Nana in it! (She like to have died with Aunt JoAnn and I dragging her through the wrong way but look...what a great picture and memory!
Thank you Paula, Jamie and Bobby Deen for making our day to Savannah a trip we will never forget!

Friday, August 5, 2011

Taking Care of Business aka:TCB

This summer we went to Graceland....we actually we were going to Tunica, MS for several days and when Jamie told his brother how close Graceland was from Tunica they decided to make a family trip and add a couple of days to our vacation! (Remember... Franne doesn't care were she goes, she is always ready for a good trip! (She gets that from Grandmother) I laugh and say Caroline would go to the dump is we were going! However the poor baby gets that from ME!
Oh so back to the story.....Graceland was on Jerry's bucket list and Jamie's parents had been before and told us how neat it was.

Waiting in line for our tour to start
Busy talking about Elvis
At the entrance
The front of the manison
Listening to all the cool facts about Elvis!
The living room

One of the upstairs room
The dinning room
I love this picture!
The kitchen
So this is the room where it hit me....Elvis ate in here!
Another picture of the kitchen
The upstairs bar
The famous room with all the mirrors
Crazy colors
Lauren listened to every word of the tour! She loved Elvis's mansion
This was a neat room!
And the famous Jungle room!
The office
The back of the manison
The pool!
The studio
Caroline standing by a statue
The graves of Elvis and his grandparents and parents
Jamie loves how many pictures I take! lol
I loved all of Elvis's cars
His moms cadillac
lots and lots of cars!
Priscilla Presley's mercedes

One of his Mercedes Limos


We all had a lot of fun today touring Elvis's mansion. I never knew him, he was before my time...however it was very sad and defiantly made me love him and understand why everyone was so crazy about him!

Thursday, July 7, 2011

13 hours in a car one way and back roads on the way home!

4th of July weekend Papa and Nana were going to go the mountains for a couple of days.
We decided to invite ourselves and pile in! lol! Jamie has off on Fridays for the summer and with Monday being a holiday he had Monday off as well. We left early Friday morning not thinking about all the holiday traffic. It took us 13 hours to get to Pigeon Forge Tennessee, oh were we ever so glad to get out of the car, get a bath and lay down in a soft bed. Well, about 8:30 Nana was dressed and ready to get going, she had even been down to the continental breakfast and got coffee and orange juice. Hurting all over, we got up and got ready to go eat breakfast at the Old Mill Restaurant.

Caroline saluting the flag!
I love being patriotic and love the 4th of July.
It is one of my favorite holidays.







I love Quilt shops!
The moment I knew we were going I started searching for them.
I found this one in Sevierville Tennessee



I loved all of the quilts!
After the quilt shop, TJmax and some outlet shopping we went back to the hotel picked up Papa and headed out to Cades Cove.

Caroline got hot! Can you tell?

I love old churches, I think this was the Methodist church.





Caroline had the best seat in the car!
I loved Cades Cove, the next time we come back I want to pack and picnic basket, blanket and chairs and stay for awhile. It was so peaceful and so relaxing.
Sitting on the fence watching the bears!

The black spot is a bear! We had been telling Caroline that we might see one and we were almost out of the park before we spotted one. Thank you Lord!
You couldn't really see him good because he was digging a hole for some reason and all you could see was dirt flying. Caroline thought that was funny, she kept saying "Is he digging a hole to hockey in" lol
Watching the bear!
How it that for getting a close look on the bear?
I did something a little crazy....I jumped out of the Tahoe and ran up five cars ahead of us to see why everyone was stopped. Now usually my nickname is "Safety Franne" well not today, I ran back to the car to grab Caroline so she could see the black bear cub too. Okay I will admit after I made it back to our vehicle (5 cars back) I realized that wasn't the smartest thing to do. What if the mama bear would have thought I was a threat to her baby and well I don't want to think about what would/could have happened. Jamie informed me not to ever get brave again. I agreed that was probably my first and last time I would get out of a car and run up to a bear.
My baby girl go to see her black bear up close even if I put her life in danger.
Notice the sign is blurry? Yea well Jamie was hungry and ready to go eat! lol
Our last day of our mini vacation to the mountains.
We missed and wished Lauren could have been with us, she was at her dads and we had just got home from Mississippi with her. We are definitely planning a trip to come back for several days with her. She would love Cades Cove and all the wildlife! Some of the plans when we come back are...
1. A picnic in Cades Cove
swimming in the streams on the way home
2. Dollywood
3. White Water Rafting
4. A Dinner Show
5. Go Cart Racing
6. Putt Putt
7. The Old Mill for breakfast every morning
8. The Apple Barn Restaurant
9. The Pear and Partridge Restaurant
10. and a little shopping for me (shhh)
We had a great time and a lot of laughs along the way!
We took back roads home to avoid the crazy traffic which, might I add was winding and I got car sick for some reason. Not really sure why?

On our way home we went through a lot of beautiful old southern towns and I loved getting to see the flags on the porches and downtowns. Everyone was so patriotic in the Tennessee and Georgia. I love Southern patriotic people!

While we were on a winding road I saw the funniest thing ever! I had to ask Papa and Jamie if they saw what I saw? Close your eyes and try to picture this...A brick home with a long, white slide on top of a roof that went to the pond in their front yard. Really??? You have got to be kidding me? As we discussed this further down the road, Nana and I came to the conclusion that apparently NO mother lived in that house! Jamie and Papa's conclusion was it would definitely make a good "YOU MIGHT BE A REDNECK" joke. We all laughed and wished we would have some how turned around and took a picture.

We also drove by a couple of beautiful home having 4th of July parties.
I wanted so bad to crash the party and pretend to be a long lost relative.
Nobody else was up for the adventure! Ha!

We made it home safe early Monday morning! (1:30 am)
(We would have been home a lot earlier but Nana and I had to stop in Dawsonville Georgia to check out the Pottery Barn outlet)
Thank you God for the traveling mercies and for keeping us safe!
We love you and thank you for all of your many blessings.

~Franne