Watermelon Mama: Memorial Day in Memphis

The Murphy clan made the big journey to Memphis. We say Memphis, but Matt's twin Melanie and her family live outside of Memphis in Olivebranch, Mississippi. (Had to run through the sing song spelling of that state from elementary school).

Friday morning by 9a three small children, and four adults piled into the mini-van for what tuned out to be an eight hour trip down south. All in all the kids did well, the adults faired okay too.

We cannot say how much everyone enjoyed our weekend. Melanie had the weekend planned and executed splendidly. Melanie is such a good cook. While the Porter hospitality was tremendous we did opt to take our zoo to a hotel for all three nights. Kids are so funny in a hotel. They were so excited. We had a hotel and free warm breakfast. Perfect for us.

Here are the family pics first. We had come down south to see Karter graduate from High School!

Karl, proud papa to the grad, and Matt out back grilling for the graduation party.

Corbin is consumed with watching, looking for, and catching creatures. Tonight the lucky animal was a toad.

He caught this little guy and kept him in the crate to watch and pick up at random.

Matt's sis Melanie was such a good hostess. Karter has such great parents.

The kids with cousin Kensie(15)

Carolyn helped out with party preparations and cake detail. I know Melanie loved having her mom close for such a big weekend.

We kept the kids happy at the park during party prep and joined everyone at the party later.

This is Melanie's coworker and old roommate and good friend Stacy

And here is the star of the show! Karter turned 18 today. So he got a graduation cake and a birthday cheesecake.

Karter had gotten a scholarship to play soccer and is gearing up for college this fall. He will be an hour away from home. Karter was awsome with the kids and loved on them. The kids had such a memorable trip with the Murphy and Porter family. What good cousins they have.

Corbin found my camera and took a few pics on his own.

Grandma and Grandpa say cheese for the camera!

As a mom one of our big milestones happened this weekend. Corbin pulled his tooth out during church Sun!!!!!! I went to get him and he was talking to me with the gap in his bottom row of teeth! Corbin where is your tooth? In my pocket. He says, "Dad said he was going to pull it out with a string, so I had to pull it out before he could."

Posing at the hotel

Saturday morning during party preparations we took the kids to the park. The hotel pool was way too coooollllllddd, teeth chattering and blue lips, to enjoy. The day was gorgeous. We took icee's and fudge bars to the park for our morning snack.

We were able to have our family photos taken. We hadn't gotten a family picture all together since Karter was 5. They turned out so well. I'll have to try and post some family pics from my cd.

After pics we had a late lunch downtown at Gus's fried chicken. A lady Matt knows at the bank raved about this diner and dive place that was one the cooking show, she had gone to. So we took the adventure with three kids downtown Memphis by Beal Street. By the time we got there after pics Aiden and Adaline were asleep. So we ended up getting chicken to go. Can we say spicy! We ended up getting the kids happy meals as they would not eat the chicken.

While my kids fell in love with the Porter family this weekend, they were not going to make it through a graduation. So I got to take them to Chuck E. Cheese. Many of you loathe taking your kids to this crazy house, but we had a great time. I think we were the only white folks in the place but it was awsome. There was hardly anyone there with graduation and a holiday weekend everyone had other plans. Our tokens lasted us for 90 minutes, with a trip by WalMart, we got home right as the rest of the family did.

Fun Times!

Sunday was church (losing a tooth), lunch with the Porter's, swimming at the much warmer pool, attempts at taking a nap, then dinner back at the Porters.