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.