Ryan's birthday

This is how I spent last Sabbath morning - driving. The trip from Winston Salem to Collegedale takes about 6 hours. I miss that drive through the mountains!

Flags at the Tennesee Welcome Center. I made really good time driving and as you can see, the weather was perfect. I finished listening to Renee's Ben Carson book while I drove.

When I got to Collegedale, everyone but Randy decided to take a nap. Stephanie became one with the recliner for several hours.

While everyone was napping, I walked around outside and tried to find birds to take pictures of. This is a sneak peek of a white-throated sparrow through the brush.





I snuck up on a phoebe, but by the time I peeked around the tree, it was a bluebird instead!


Saturday night, we played a few games of Settlers. I think Mary Jane ended up winning after Stephanie gave her some free cards!

This game didn't end until about 12:40a, so Stephanie tried to get in naps in between her turns.

After breakfast, Ryan opened his presents and he got lots of nice stuff!

He even got to play tennis on his birthday against not one, but two competitors.

He tried out a racquet that cost less than $10 and he actually liked it. Here are some pictures with that racquet.







Eric Baerg and Andrew Bauer met Ryan at Southern's courts and enjoyed the warmer weather.







Here's Eric trying to salvage a game against Ryan and Ryan serving. Ryan played against both of the guys later.


Grant got Randy's guitar out and played Moonlight Sonata for us before lunch.





Xavier came over for the birthday lunch too. He's back in Collegedale now after finishing his degree at AUC.

We decided that Ryan was turning 32, or 2^5. We had pizza, veggies, ice cream, and birthday cookie.

After we got home, I gave Ryan his last present, a new waffle iron! This one actually was slightly damaged before it shipped so the company sent another one for free! So he got two!








He had no idea what was in the box. I'll have to post pictures of the first time he uses them.