Every three months or so the Mayhews of North Carolina and the Mayhews of Tennessee and the Harbins of Tennessee converge at a cabin at Oak Haven Resort in Pigeon Forge. Granbunny says we don’t have a family tree as much as we have a kudzu vine. So here goes. Paul Harbin was married to Mark’s mother, until she passed away. Paul then married Susan, a.k.a. Granbunny. They are the Harbins of Tennessee.  Mark has a son, Josh, from a previous marriage. He married Tammy. They had the lovely and absolutely perfect Sydney. They are the Mayhews of North Carolina. Meanwhile, Mark married Catherine (moi!) and we had a son, Noah. We are obviously, by process of elimination, the Mayhews of Tennessee.law grad 14

I cannot believe I am showing you this photo. It’s of Granddaddy, Mark and Granbunny at Mark’s law school graduation. It has NOTHING to do with this post except that it just gives you an idea of how Granbunny dresses. She accessorizes quite well, don’t you think? Mark is not related to either of these people in this photo. However, Mark did go through law school partially on the Granbunny Scholarship. We don’t forget things like that.

At any rate, it took Noah about ten years to figure out that neither of his grandparents were actually related to him. But we are related by love and that trumps that “blood is thicker than water” thing by a mile.

So for our weekend in Pigeon Forge, Granbunny, Tammy and I have been furiously e-mailing each other for two weeks and the only topic has been who’s bringing what to eat. Granbunny and I have been discussing menus for about twenty years non-stop, but poor Tammy had to jump into the deep end of the pool when she joined this family. But that girl’s a fighter. That first time we got together she brought like twenty packages of refrigerated cookie dough, God love her.DSC_0133

That’s Tammy leading the Conga line at her wedding reception. She is exactly as much fun as she looks like in this photo. I didn’t mean to throw all these unrelated photos into this post, but don’t you think it’s fun to see who I’m talking about?

So back to the food for this weekend. Granbunny is bringing a shrimp and artichoke casserole or her famous spaghetti sauce for one supper. I know she will bring both because she’s a classic over-achiever. She’s also baking muffins. And, because I know her so well, she’ll also bring appetizer thingies from Sam’s. Tammy’s bringing Bagel Bites, mini cheeseburgers, taquitos, chips, cookies and other snackoid items (it’s game day Saturday – go VOLS!!) plus cinnamon rolls and soft drinks. I’m bringing pork tenderloin, roasted vegetables, some kind of tater’ thing (maybe mashed potato casserole with bacon bits and sour cream?), eggs, bacon, Velveeta that will go somewhere, possibly in a hot cheese and Rotel tomato dip for game day, and I won’t be able to leave town without going to the Costco for other appetizer-type things.

Plus we will have our traditional last-day breakfast at the Flapjacks Pancake Cabin in Pigeon Forge, which usually amounts to a mountain of cholesterol. And we’ll all hit the outlet mall in Sevierville, where they have a Pepperidge Farm outlet store that sells all the cookies, crackers and Godiva chocolate for half price!

I just love my family. I hope we have enough to eat.

One Comment

  1. KC
    KCReply
    January 29, 2010 at 5:09 pm

    Wow!!! I just learned a boat load of information I never knew about you. I’m loving your blogs by the way. Who doesn’t love good food blogs? You know you can count on me to comment frequently. I like to think I’m a wonderfully creative writer trapped in a business executives need to earn a living.

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