how awesome is family?

Today was a wonderful day. Hannah and I have been in Tennessee since last Saturday night. Today (Thursday) we went with my dad to Nashville. Unfortunately, my mom couldn’t come because of work. As soon as we arrived, we picked my granddad up for lunch. We went out to an old family restaurant called Dotson’s, although it was apparently sold by Mr. Dotson to another family some years back. We had Southern vegetables (i.e., everything was either fried or boiled for a long time) and meringue pie. Afterwards, we took Granddaddy to get his beard trimmed, then Hannah and I took the car to go shoe shopping while Dad and Granddaddy rested.

I’ve been wanting a new pair of sandals for some time. We drove through all of the nearby malls, failed to find a shoe store, and ended up at REI. I found a good pair of hefty sandals on sale, making it one of the easiest clothes shopping trips I’ve had in a long time.

Next we went to the grocery store and got food to grill at my aunt and uncle’s house. They just acquired a new grill for Mother’s Day. My little three year-old cousin was adorable as always, and still demonstrating phenomenal competence at everything from language to arithmetic to manners to physical prowess (for a while she pretended to be a bear, about to come out of its cave and devour us). She also made fun of Hannah and me for apparently liking each other.

My brother arrived a little late, having flown in from Los Angeles. We made a great and happy crowd around the dinner table. Finally, before driving back home, we stopped by my brother’s house and met up with some of his friends there.

I’m leaving out so much, of course—all the small but marvelous details that really make a day like this special. Perhaps I’m only recording the bare sequence of events to remind myself later of what happened, and I’m too nervous (or too tired) to write down the personal things. Sorry about that. I will mention that my aunt showed us a video that’s being created by the company she works for, focusing on their projects to provide safe places to raise children in shelters. The photos and interviews are heart-rending. I’ll post a link once I get it. But I simply want to convey that this is a day Hannah and I will cherish, and that I hope all of you are still finding such moments and days with your families.