Caitlyn at Homecoming

With one of her best friends, Savannah, at our house before the dance:

With her boyfriend Matt after the dance (I drove him home). He didn't get there until late because of his own football game (he goes to a different high school). His Dad dropped him at the dance and he changed in the car on the way over (no shower).

And yes, I feel old now.

Homecoming, Tommy in Band

Here is Kayla in her Homecoming dress:


And here is Tommy doing marching band with a broken ankle:

Mom and Dad's Visit to TN

We're having a great time with Mom and Dad. They arrived on Thursday evening last week. Saturday we all went into Gatlinburg and wandered around. We had a great pancake brunch, and then came home and watched NE lose a tough one to VT. Sunday we went boating pretty much all day. Dad drove for a while so that Caitlyn and I could raft together and he broke a new record for air time when he hit a wake and sent us both bouncing up into the air and off the raft. Yesterday (Mon.) Mom and Dad went downtown to the older part of Knoxville to explore on their own.

Today I took them golfing at Willow Creek. It's a long course, and yes, Dad beat me again (he had a 93 to my 97). I didn't bring a calculator for Mom's score (actually, she did pretty well). Tonight we may go to the science museum in Oak Ridge and listen to a lecture on the state of the Y12 plant (where I work). On Thurs, Mom and Dad are planning on going to the Biltmore castle in Asheville, NC (I may join them time permitting). This weekend we'll probably be back out on the boat and having dinner on the lake. Wish you all were here too!

John

Rough Weekend

We had quite the weekend. On Friday afternoon I rode up with a couple of other musicians to rehearse and play a show with Joe Piscopo - nice guy, BTW, and a real pro. He sang, played about 5 different instruments, did comedy bits and impressions, interacted with the audience, auctioned off chances to dance with him, and generally brought a lot of Vegas energy to a room of about 200 (I kind of felt sorry for him - it seems kind of a tough way to make a living for a guy who had made it to the big time. Maybe he knew somebody on the board of the charity we were raising money for - or knew somebody who benefits from the charity). Here he is (sorry for the blurry pic) auctioning off a chance to dance with him after the show.

Anyway, we had about 2 hours or so to kill after the rehearsal before the show, so we headed to Old Chicago to have a beer - on the way I get a text message from Julie to call her - it seems Tommy snapped his ankle playing ultimate frisbee down at Cook Pavilion. She later sent me a picture message of his ankle before the doctors reset it (WARNING - don't click if you have a weak stomach) you can see the pic here if you want. It was pretty horrifying to see that and not be able to be at the hospital.  The gig went until about 11 pm, so I didn't get home in time to head to the hospital until the next day.

He had his surgery Saturday morning, and it went fine.  Now we're just dealing with how we're going to get him to classes.

Our Return to Boating

Hi family:

We finally got to test our new boat yesterday, and it worked great! The lake was calm and empty (TN was having its first home game), and the temperature of both the water and air was perfect. I sent you all an invitation to see the pictures I took on Kodak ShareGallery, but I'm not sure its working, so I thought I'd make this posting as well (I did not get any messages from anyone about the last one share gallery I sent, about our Labor Day in a cabin, but that could be because my email address in KodakShare was out of date). Anyway, hope everyone is having a great weekend, and we can't wait to see Mom and Dad in a couple of weeks!

Everything Changes

Paul got moved into his new apartment last week, Tommy is moved into his dorm, and Kayla is deep into band camp and school. The other night, Julie and I stopped by Sunken Gardens - we haven't gone there in a long time. It's amazing how much it has changed since the days we used to run wild there when we visited Grandma and Grandpa Nehe (you can see their old house in the back of the first picture. I had my cell phone with me, so I decided to take some pics so that those of you who haven't been by there in a while could see it in full bloom.

Getting Settled In

Hi Everybody:

Well we just had our fourth weekend since the movers came in, and we're finally pretty settled in. We have to unpack old kids toys (the only remaining boxes), and decide which ones to give away, sell, or trash and which ones to keep, but at least you can see the garage now. We could actually put both cars in if I didn't want to keep things clear for a little more shelf work first. The third picture down is of our third garage bay (all clear now), and the bottom one shows Sarah helping to check in boxes as they come off the truck (she did a great job). In the second picture, Chris finally gets to relax for a few minutes on our new porch, and at the top is the morning of the first day of school.

The next big thing for us is getting an audio/video contractor in. We need to have our flatscreen mounted over the fireplace, and I'm going to install a home theater upstairs similar to the one we had when we lived in Knoxville before. When that's done we'll actually be able to entertain visitors.

Meanwhile, the kids started back to school this Mon (8/11). Caitlyn has started high school, and Sarah started middle school. They also started dance again this week, so Chris is back to carting kids around. They seem to be doing OK, but summer was very short for them, and neither has any old friends in their classes - but they'll adjust.

Looking forward to football season (considering season TN tickets, but really looking forward to the Husker season). Hope all is well with everyone. I'll send out email addresses and new contact information to everyone by email. Take care,

John