Sunday, December 21, 2008

Santa knows

Christmas is almost upon us and, oh, what a time we will have!

We spent the weekend in White Pine and enjoyed time with family for some pre-Christmas gift opening and stomach stuffing of great food.

The time-honored tradition of watching the Dandridge Christmas Parade was also in full effect on Saturday afternoon. Erik spent Saturday morning with 1989 classmates at Sevier County High School, touring the halls and telling stories.

So Rigby and Lucy have told us what they want for Christmas. Rigby told Santa the other day that he wants a remote control dinosaur, namely "Spike," the ultra dinosaur. Santa looked at me and then asked Rigby, do you want anything else? Rigby, said "Nope, that's it."

Lucy was a little easier. She wants anything pink - purse, Barbie, Barbie car, etc.

So later I asked Rigby what if Santa could not find it. Rigby said, "Santa does not have to look for it, his elves make it."

Rigby later told Stacy that he wanted a space station as well. When we asked Rigby what kind of space station, Rigby said, "Santa knows." Guess he will have to figure that one out.

So off I went to Target tonight, with Santa. I swear a tornado of shopping went through that place and there was no Spike, much less anything else.

But there were about eight Spikes at Toys R Us! While Santa was there, a Disney Princess kitchen set happened to make it into Santa's shopping cart as well.

The economy is not hurting in Chattanooga! The lady at Toys R Us told me that they got 144 Wii's on Friday night and that the last one sold Sunday evening. There were more than six Toys R Us employees roaming the aisles stocking items. The place was quite full of people after 10 p.m. and they are open until Midnight until Christmas eve.

Fun times.

Merry Christmas to all! Hope you enjoy your friends, family and the reason for the season!

Sunday, December 07, 2008

A Great December Weekend

The GrayStation family had such a great weekend - MAINx24, The Chattanooga Market, Inhabit, good eats around town and spending fun times with family and friends.

We arrived on Main Street Saturday morning just in time for the Main Street parade. Rigby had already started the morning earlier at TAG Gym practicing his gymnastic skills.

It was great to see so many people on Main Street enjoying a neighborhood parade in cloudy, windy, 35 degree weather. After the parade concluded, we followed Santa in his horse and carriage down Main Street. We ran into friends along the way and then crossed the street over to Bluegrass Grill. If you haven't been, get there.

After finishing a great brunch, we strolled on down Main Street to Green/Spaces and then on to Niedlov's Breadworks. They have some of the best bread in town, and our bag of cheddar pepper sourdough and a holiday Stollen proves it. And a big full-of-blueberries muffin for Lucy.

After enjoying ourselves visiting various stops along Main Street, we made our way on down the Southside to the Chattanooga Market to see Ivey Handcrafted and other folks.

After the Market, we toured some open houses in Jefferson Heights and enjoyed the Take Root tree-planting scene at the J.H. Park.

We made it home in the afternoon for a quick catnap before we took the kids to Nana and Papa's for the evening.

And so the night began. We had an awesome evening and dinner at St. John's Restaurant with the Hamakers, Stricklands and Fernandezes, not to mention some other nearby political figures and prominent citizens.

The late evening led us to Loose Cannon Studios on Rossville Ave off Main Street for a great Inhabit party, enjoying beer+wine+liquor+food+music+shenanigans. The place was flat-out packed, so much that the street outside was closed off and the loading dock area out back was loaded with fire pits to keep the 500+ people warm on a clear, chilly evening.

We met up with many friends we had not seen in a long time and others who we see and enjoy regularly. What a great time.

We made it back to a sleeping location at the Oglesby Ranch in the wee hours and then woke around sunrise. We loaded up the kids and, on the way home, we drove down Main Street surveying the post-event scene and realizing how lucky we are to live in such a great city. One last stop before we got home, Hardee's breakfast!

Sunday was great as well. We enjoyed family time and then went for an afternoon drive. We went back out to the Chattanooga Market to buy some Christmas gifts and found a great new salsa maker from Atlanta. Wow!

We had dinner back down on our local haunt, Frazier Avenue, and enjoyed a tasty new spot, Good Dog. The various hot dogs, fries and "condiment gallery" were awesome. Dessert consisted of what else? Clumpies.

We finished the day driving around North Chattanooga looking at Christmas lights and then filled up on $1.43 a gallon gas.