Friends, Family and Birds…

Switching my focus away from our summer time adventures, I thought that I’d just recap a few happenings and miscellaneous items from the last 2 + months…

This was daughter-in-law Amy’s photo of her two boys (our grandsons) when they got all dressed up for their school’s homecoming celebration.  Emmett Lee just turned 15 in November and David III will be 18 in December.  Smart and in our opinion, good looking too!

In October, Laurie’s sister Bonnie with her husband Bill, came to visit us here in East Tennessee.  Laurie took this photo of them by our front door.

We were lucky enough to have another chance to go for a boat ride on Tellico Lake.  Several communities border the lake including Tellico Village, Foothills Pointe, Rarity Bay and Wind River.  That equals a lot of docks and marinas along various sections of the 351 mile shoreline.

The captain of our vessel was Norm and his first mate was his better half, Linda.  They are our frequent dining buddies!  Norm had just had his pontoon boat refurbished and we were on the ‘maiden’ voyage.

Several golf courses also border Tellico Lake.   They make for beautiful views, whether from the courses or from the water. 

This humongous mansion in Rarity Bay sits high on a hill overlooking the lake.  Rarity Bay is a gated boating, golf and horse owner’s development.

This has to be the biggest houseboat that I’ve ever seen on either Tellico or Ft. Loudoun Lake.  Those 2 lakes are connected via a canal that was cut between them when Tellico Lake was completed.  

We stopped for an early dinner at Tanasi Grill which has docks on Tellico Lake.  Tanasi Grill is part of Tellico Village, an open community, so it’s easily accessed by the general public.  As night approached, it certainly was a beautiful ride back to the dock at the end of our boating experience…

Laurie captured a nice photo of this turkey in our front house.  It seemed to be telling her that this was personal property!

Another year with our hummingbirds…not easy to photograph though!  It drives Laurie crazy when they fight with each other over control of the feeder.

Another special feathered visitor at our feeder was this rose breasted grosbeak.  He hung around for several weeks in early to mid-fall, fueling up for his move south.

…and then our earlier visitor brought back a few friends!  We have a flock wandering our area that has numbered as many as 3 dozen of these big birds.

Another big event was the big 70^th birthday party for Charlie.  Friends Charlie and his wife Karen were one of the couples we met first when we retired and moved to East Tennessee.

The party featured a top notch live band!  Charlie and Karen’s sons, Brad and Steve, had been under contract with Disneyworld at the Epcot Center for several years, performing as the “British Revolution”.  For this event, the boys teamed up with some musician friends that they’d played with before and came up from Florida for their dad’s big birthday.  What nice sons!

They decided to call this group the ‘Re-Union Jacks’…cute, don’t you think?!  In the photo Brad is at the far left and and Steve is at front at the right.

Everyone was taking photos.  Charlie had asked someone at each table to take photos of the couples at the table and many of us took lots of additional pictures too… However, there was an actual ‘official’ professional photographer at work too, Karen and Charlie’s son Brad’s wife, Courtney. 

The party was held in the lower level of the Tellico Village Yacht Club and the Yacht Club’s food service operation provided a nice buffet dinner for the crowd.  FYI, the Yacht Club features an upscale restaurant with great views that is open to the public.  Learn more about The Blue Heron Restaurant at http://www.tellicovillageyachtclub.com/.   

Despite the fact that most residents of Tellico Village and the majority of the folks at Charlie’s big birthday party are retired, this photo proves that they are a lively active group!  They especially liked the old-time rock and roll music!

This is local legend, DJ Lou!  He’s a retired postal employee from Maine who has spent the last 9 years performing as a DJ on Friday nights at the Yacht Club as well as for a plethora of local parties and other events.  As one of Charlie’s friends, Lou served as the emcee for the evening.  Lou is a high energy guy, that’s for sure!   

One of the couples sitting with us for the party took this photo of Laurie and yours truly.  I actually smiled a little!  It was a fun time and we loved the music!  Happy Birthday Charlie and thanks for the invite! 

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by to see what’s been going on!

Take Care, Big Daddy