Little Oak 2021

 We weren’t able to get our favorite spots, all of the family couldn’t make it to join us, and we had boat trouble, but we still had a great time!

This was Jingle’s last camping trip

Baseball!

This was a great year for Tennessee baseball and Arkansas baseball (though Arkansas really should have won the NCAA title and didn’t!).  Anyhow, there was a lot of excitement around here for a while.  Here we are at the game when Arkansas came to town.  Woo Pig Sooie!

We had great seats right behind home plate!

Waterfalls

Terry and I took a spring hike to some nice waterfalls that we had never seen before.  My favorite was Cummins Falls where we hiked in from the creek below.  You must get wet for his hike.  I slipped at one point and hurt my hand.  Found out about three weeks later that I had broken it.

We also hiked to Burgess Falls.  The water volume was excellent!

First Birthday!

Pi Day is a great day for a birthday!  Actually any day is a great day to eat pie!  I love these photos that Rebecca took of our grandson enjoying his first birthday pie!

A few days after his actual birthday in Richmond, they all came to Knoxville for a baby dedication.  The baby dedication ending up doubling as a baby ANNOUNCEMENT!  We have another grandchild on the way this November.  Here are some photos made at this celebration:

   

  

We had fun having them here for about a week and getting to do some hands-on grandparenting.  

Watching March Madness

Wearing his “Current Family Favorite” outfit

Happy New Year 2021

 

Hello Friends!

Just when you thought the holidays were over, along comes a Christmas letter from your friends, the procrastinators, aka the Seamans! We hope you had a great time celebrating Christ’s birth and ringing out what has to be the weirdest year ever.

Even without Covid, 2020 was a very eventful year for us – a death, a birth, a wedding, milestone birthdays, a milestone anniversary, and an epic road trip.  And our first empty nest.  

Our first grandchild was due in March on our 30^th wedding anniversary.  Our little grandson arrived a few days early on March 14^th.  I traveled to Richmond for the big event, but the hospital had closed for visitors when a national emergency due to Covid was declared just the day before his birth.  While the world was going nuts, we were enjoying just hanging out and holding our new grandson.  He is a very happy and delightful baby, and Joseph and Rebecca are great parents!  We’ve also really enjoyed watching our sons become uncles.  

In May, Terry’s younger brother, Scott, passed away after a short but valiant battle with stomach cancer.  Scott was such a special guy, and we will always miss him.  Terry has spent a lot of time grieving, but he would be the first to tell you how the Lord has really met him in his grief.

One July 18th, we had a much happier family event!  Caleb married Meredith Hudson here in downtown Knoxville!  They had to scale things back a bit due to Covid, but we were very proud of how they handled everything.  It was a beautiful wedding, and we are so happy to have another daughter! 

Up until this July, our nest was still 75% full.  Then in one month’s time, Nathan got his first apartment, Caleb got married, and Noah moved back to college for in-person classes.  So we decided to take our empty nest on the road for a belated anniversary trip.  We flew to San Francisco, rented a camper van, and spent three weeks on the road in Northern California, Oregon, and Washington.  It was a phenomenal trip.  And we just missed the fires!

We had a beautiful fall here and got to do quite a bit of hiking.  Then we hosted family and friends for an outdoor tailgate for Terry’s 60^th birthday, which happened to be the day of the Alabama game.  Of course, the game was lousy for Tennessee fans, but we had a lot of fun and won “tailgate of the week”!

We are thankful that Terry’s home renovation business has not really been adversely affected by Covid, and though I did some of my dyslexia therapy on Zoom this Spring, I have mostly been seeing students in-person and have been so busy that I am not taking any more students right now!  We are both blessed to really be enjoying what we are doing.  

Our kids are doing well.  Rebecca, Joseph and Judah are still living in Richmond.  Joseph is a helicopter pilot for the National Guard and is due to be mobilized to Washington, DC in early summer.  Caleb and Meredith are living in Chattanooga.  Their plan is for Meredith to begin travel nursing soon, and Caleb will work on finishing his accounting degree online while they move around.  Nathan is a nurse in the trauma ICU at UT hospital here in Knoxville, and he and his cousin, Ben, rent an apartment not far from us.  Noah is still a student at Lee University.  He has found a passion for directing and hopes to be selected to direct a show for Lee next year.  

We all got to be together during the holidays (and even had a White Christmas!), but we actually forgot to document it with a group photo!  Instead, I’ve included a collage from our year below.  

Hope your 2021 is off to a good start!         

          

White Christmas

 To me, there is nothing more magical than when snow starts falling on Christmas Eve!  This year, our daughter’s family arrived from Richmond just as the snow began to fall.  The Christmas music playing, the smells from the kitchen, the smiles and excitement - it was a treat for my senses and my momma’s heart! 

Rebecca said “Hey, I could make some cool photos of you and Dad if you want.”  I just love having a photographer in the family!  It literally just took five minutes and Rebecca captured those magical moments of snow and mistletoe right in our front yard. (Photo Credits:  Thousand Word Photography)

I had big plans that we would make our family Christmas card photo in the snow this year (the letter I now send out AFTER Christmas because it's just easier), but by the time Caleb and Meredith came to town, most of the snow was gone.  We did go on a walk in the park on Christmas day and made a few photos.  Then we went caroling at Terry's parents.  We could only do a few songs because it was so COLD!

Very Hungry Caterpillar & Other Literary Greats

 I had so much fun knitting for my grandson.  I'm not that skilled, so I opted for a baby sack and hat.  The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a book Rebecca enjoyed as a little girl, and I even picked up a copy of it in German for her when Terry and I travelled to Europe when she was two.  I just love the way these photos turned out!

Then came some more book photos with childhood favorites.  I have plenty of photos to decorate my tutoring space.  

And I call these next two photos - Where the Wild Things Are