quick family visit, tennessee in september

When my sister told me they were having a little party for our niece Emma‘s first birthday at their farm, we couldn’t resist the excuse to make a quick trip to Tennessee to be there. Eric, Ollie, and I packed up in the car and drove in on Saturday morning, stopping at Krystal before checking into our hotel and taking a long walk. We headed out to Jen and Tim’s farm for the afternoon and caught up with family, ate hot dogs, made friends with kittens, and watched the birthday girl demolish a cake and stack of presents while the adults took hundreds of photos of her doing it. I can’t say how much I enjoy being an aunt while watching Eric be the coolest uncle ever.

As it got dark, the four of us plus one tiny nephew piled into their Kabuto to take a full tour of the tomato fields and family property since Eric hadn’t seen it. At one point, we stopped the vehicle and I got out to look at the sky. Being so far from light pollution of major cities, the stars shine so bright and clear that you can easily pick out the Milky Way. Tim pointed this out when he saw me looking up and the four of us stood there quietly for a few moments, getting cricks in our necks. It’s really magic out there. We eventually kissed everyone goodnight and headed back into town for a long night’s sleep.

Since we were so close the Chattanooga area and hadn’t been in since March, we decided to drive back through Georgia to see a few more sides of the family marathon style. After a quick catchup, we had lunch with Eric’s parents, sister and nephew, then drove over to see his grandparents for a bit. We finished our circle and visited with my aunt and uncle on the way to the highway to head home. As usual, we left town a little later than we wanted to and got back home pretty late, but we’re used to it by now. We can’t get away every weekend, but trips like this one make me wish we could.