And Many More...

Today we celebrate Lauchlin's mom's birthday! Here are some photos of her throughout the years (and we wouldn't dare tell you how many!):

Here she is with Lauchlin's grandmother, Ella Beth (aka Mammaw), in the early years...



...outside her childhood home (and now our current home) looking so sweet and innocent...

...school days...

...in 1963 at a Sub-Deb ball with Lauchlin's dad...

...and a more current photo of her with her favorite sister, Beth...

Happy Birthday, Mom/Janie!

Everyone loves a parade!

Friday night, we enjoyed some time on Washington Street with the Miss Mississippi Pageant Contestants...


Lauchlin pre-partied with Liz, Mary Beth, Ned, Sandy, and Xandi on Sandy's balcony.


Miss Mississippi 2008, Kimberly Morgan, is from Oxford but did not graduate from the same high school as Olivia.


Miss Delta State's escort certainly was dapper that evening.


De'Dee didn't mind riding on the back of this car!


Miss University showed no lack of school spirit.


That's our car-Miss Jones County ended up in the top 10.


Worth the wait... The ballroom men brought up the rear atop the fire truck.

"A Moment Like This"

Tonight's the night... 45 girls will compete for the crown in the 51st Miss Mississippi Pageant. If you have been to Vicksburg during pageant week, you know that the town shuts down for this event. We have a favorite contestant, DeDee, who was one of Olivia's students at All Saints'. She will be performing Kelly Clarkson's first original song.

Big News for the H.C. Porter Gallery

Lauchlin Fields is coming on board! Lauchlin is going to be the new executive director of the H.C. Porter Gallery starting mid-July (and is going to do a fantastic job of it.) Parting from the newspaper was no easy decision, but she will continue to write and apply her creativity at the gallery. We're so excited! As you can see from the picture, we'll make a great team.

It's Your Favorite

Inspired by the movie Juno, we had Pauly Bleeker's favorite last night, "Breakfast for Dinner." What's the best part? We had leftovers for the morning!

  

Relax, Refuel, Reuse

We really enjoyed downtown Knoxville and even got to try out the Knoxville Farmers' Market in Market Square.



Olivia had missed her morning coffee, so she got some at the information tent (Where we met a woman whose mother and aunt live in Vicksburg). We did not ask to see the certificate on file certifying that their coffee is, in fact, organic.


We became privy to an excellent example of reusing glass bottles. The secret: a glass cutter and sandpaper.


We ate at the Downtown Grill & Brewery where they make several varieties of "Woodruff" beer. You can tell by our faces that we had happy bellies after eating our burgers w/a side of guacamole and chicken parmesan sandwiches.  

Tennessee Travels

Our trip to Knoxville began bright and early Thursday morning. And, before we hit the road, we embarked on an unsuccessful quest to find a mechanical pencil (for crossword puzzles). After looking at three gas stations (one of which was selling one for $7), we decided a pen would work just fine.

No Fields family vacation would be complete without a picture of the fam before we hit the road!

It was a tough decision: Fuel up with unleaded regular or regular unleaded?! Hmmmm....

Olivia found this sign in one of the many gas stations where we stopped along the way. Needless to say, we didn't purchase any innard tickler.

We had plenty of time to enjoy the scenery while we waited in traffic in Chattanooga for an hour:

The view as we entered mountain country:




We had to take off our sunglasses when approaching the dark forest that led to Tal and Jenny's house.

And, after more than nine hours on the road, we were greeted by this beautiful monstrosity of a house - Fields Manor. It's beautiful. We hope to provide a tour of the house on the blog once we return. Until then, we'll be documenting other bloggable scenes along the way.

Rock On!

Happy Birthday, Katherine!

Knoxville Bound

In their own little ways, Mojo and Clementine helped us get a jump start this morning on our packing for Knoxville. We are about to embark on a family vacation, and we can't wait to see Tal, Jenny, & Lydia in their new house nestled in the Smoky Mountains! Hopefully we'll remember the USB cord so that we can keep up the blog!

To Market

     The tomato-salmonella scare coincided perfectly with the opening of the Vicksburg Farmers' Market last Saturday.  Mr. Freeman, formerly of Freeman Tomato, was caught smiling and joking with customers, and we were lucky enough to get a super deal on homegrown tomatoes. 

     After the market, we headed to Oxford for a quick visit with Olivia's family for Father's Day where we delightfully settled in front of the TV in our hotel room for a "Top Chef" marathon.  

All Smiles

Fresh Veggies, Please!

We are so psyched about The Vicksburg Farmers' Market, which kicks off tomorrow. A little birdie told us that the market will have at least nine growers providing fresh fruit and vegetables - more than most markets in the state! So, we have 20 $1 bills ready to stock up. We're so excited, in fact, that last weekend in New Orleans, the food that jumped off our plate at Copeland's started looking like some of the food we hope to buy...

Our friend, Mary Beth, is most definitely the rock star behind this event, which we know is going to give Vicksburg a much needed kick-start. We had MB and Ned over for dinner and what ended up being an after-dinner dip in the pool (which is, sadly, barely hanging on by its inflatable ring these days) earlier this week. Details about the market over dinner (and soaking) added only more inspiration for some home-cooked veggie meals.

And the Award Goes To...

We apologize for the delay with posting, but our router for our internet broke and we haven't had any way to do, well, anything.
While we await our new equipment and put our post from the weekend on hold, we thought we would share with you a bit of excitement from Lauchlin's extended family.
Her cousin, Easton, has been selected as a winner of the Mississippi Institute for Arts and Letters.
According to The Clarion-Ledger: "The awards annually celebrate the legacy of artists with strong Mississippi ties and specific works published, exhibited or performed the previous calendar year."
Here is one of seven winners for this year:
Lauchlin first heard about the award from her sister, Lucy, who noticed a poster with the above picture of Easton at the Warren County-Vicksburg Public Library. Now, the news is everywhere!

He will be formally honored at an awards reception at the Mississippi Museum of Art Saturday. It's a black-tie event that costs $50 to attend. Instead of attending, we'll just offer a "Congratulations, Easton!" right here.

To learn more about Easton and his award, check out the following links:

THE CLARION LEDGER

EASTON'S WEB SITE

Art runs in the Selby/Fields family. As most of you know, Lauchlin's sister, Katherine, is an artist/art professor. We can't plug one without the other. So, check out her art at...

KATHERINE'S WEB SITE

Linares Love

Someone is a year older. 

And, it's not the smoking, inflatable crab, which, incidentally, is now dead.

We will be in New Orleans (well, Kenner, really) this weekend to celebrate Cortney's birthday. She has finally (two months to the day) caught up to Lauchlin and turns the big 2-9 today. We will be playing with precious Victoria, whom we have not seen in at least 6 months, and chilling in their neighborhood pool. It will be nice to get out of Vicksburg for a while and spend some quality time with three and a half of our favorite people. In case you haven't been reading the blog carefully or frequently, Cortney is pregnant with baby No. 2, which is the reason for the "half."
We always have a good time with the Linares Family. Evidence is below...




And, apparently, to have a good time, everyone is required to open his or her mouth.

Happy Birthday, Cortney!

The Show's Coming Down!

This is the last weekend to see the Backyards and Beyond exhibition of H.C. Porter's paintings at the Mississippi Arts Center. It's worth the trip, and admission is free, 10-5 on Saturday, 12-5 on Sunday. Check out the link on the list to the left for more info.

Trash to Treasure

Coke is it! Did you know that collecting bottle caps could lead to entertainment? Well, Olivia's dad has been saving and entering Coke rewards codes online for her for a while. A few weeks ago, she cashed some of them in, and today, we received a free DVD/VCR combo player on our doorstep! Check it out:

We purchased our old DVD player in 2001. We know that technology has advanced, but we still have the luxury of watching Olivia's favorite "Monkees" episodes and Lauchlin on "Romper Room."

Of course, Clementine, was already privy to the fact that one man's trash is another cat's treasure! She immediately claimed the box as her own.

August in June...

Lauchlin worked late on Tuesday night writing stories after attending the city zoning board meeting. As if that weren't entertainment enough, we had a movie night when she got home. We loved this movie, "August Rush." It's all about music and stars Keri Russell, one of the best actresses to come out of the Mickey Mouse Club.



Here's a clip, if you want to see more:

Mama Mia, That's a Good Meatball!

Now that "Dancing with the Stars" is off the air, we are able to socialize on both Monday and Tuesday nights. We went on Monday night to visit with Sean and his dog Callie (short for "Caliber"-She'd been shot when he found her and gave her a new "leash" on life). Sean cooks only a few times out of the year, but he's very good at it when he does. You can tell from the before and after pictures that we all became members of the "Clean Plate Club" last night.