On Sunday we took a wonderful drive through the Cherokee National Forest. It sure was beautiful and I can not wait to go back in the Spring. We stopped along a river that ran along the road to take a few pictures.
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| My Beautiful Momma |
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| Dad & Mom |
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| Momma taking pictures |
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| Tyler & my Dad |
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| Picture my Mom took of me. |
On Monday my mom, Tyler & I went to Sweetwater to check out the antique stores. (I think I am the luckiest wife ever....my husband likes to go to antique stores!!) We were on the great Blue Ridge Pottery hunt! (I always am on the GBRPH!) Blue Ridge Pottery is a type of china that was hand crafted & painted here in eastern Tennessee, Erwin to be exact. Erwin is also where my dad grew up as a young boy. My grandmother (his mom) & my great-aunts worked in the Southern Potteries factory hand painting plates, bowls, platters, vases, etc. For most of my life my mom has searched and collected Blue Ridge Pottery. She has a BEAUTIFUL collection!
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| Part of my Moms collection |
Now in my adult life I have also caught the "bug" of collecting the beautiful dishes and often find myself in antique stores on the hunt. As you can imagine, Tennessee is a GREAT place to find the goods! I found a great bowl with plaid flowers!
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| My find. |
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| My Mom's find....great size for a side dish! |
On Tuesday, my mom, Tyler & I went to the Mayfield Dairy Plant and toured the production line.
We first watched a short movie about the Mayfield family and their grow to be one of the largest dairy's in the Southeast. After that we donned our hair nets and entered the factory. (we were unable to take pictures inside)
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| Lucy headed to work on the candy line! LOL |
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| Me and Santa!! |
Inside we saw where they make all the milk jugs. In this plant they not only make Mayfield Yellow milk jugs, but the jugs that are for private labels like Save-A-Lot & Great Value! We then followed the plastic jugs along a conveyor to the bottling plant. There we saw Great Value whole milk being labeled and filled. We also saw True Moo Chocolate milk being bottled. I was very surprised by how clean the faciltiy is. (I am not sure what I was expecting) Also we learned that none of the jugs or cartons are touched by the human hands until their are loaded onto the trucks for distribution.
After the tour we stopped at the ice cream counter and had us some Mayfield ice cream. (they also make ice cream in the plant) It was wonderful!
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| Me & Mom w/our ice cream |
Oh and here are a few facts we learned about cows before we started our tour...
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| Blue- Cows drink 30-50 gallons of water each day. Red- Cows produce 9 gallons of milk a day. (90 glasses) Yellow- Cows are milked twice a day. Green- Cows eat 100 pounds of food a day- hay, silage, corn & grass. Orange- If you were to eat like a cow you would have to eat 360 cheeseburgers and drink 600 cartons of milk every day. |
Tuesday night we went out to dinner for my birthday. It was a great dinner and I enjoyed spending a few more hours talking with my mom and dad. We got dessert to go and ate it at home.(we had eaten way to much a dinner to fit it in there!) Tomorrow Tyler & I head home. I can not wait to come back for another visit. I think next time we are going to Gatlinburg!
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