We stayed in a hotel overnight and went to the historic Rhyman Auditorium-the “Mother Church” of country music-and the home of the original Grand Ol’ Opry where my grandfather played the upright “bass fiddle” for Pee Wee King. He is standing with it in the 1942-43 cast photo that Katy is pointing to in the photo above.

They have a nice little “recording studio” set up in the auditorium and Katy sang Amazing Grace with a nice little gospel style accompaniment.

My grandfather also had many stories about honky-tonkin’ on Music Row! One of the favorites for he & his buddies was Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge right around the corner from the Rhyman. So…Katy & I went and had a coke & listened to the guy play for a few minutes around 11am.

Wonderful memories…hope as many for her as for me.

Katy has a big heart. its the way God made her and its awesome. i don’t think i have ever shared the circumstances surrounding her kissy fingers. now seems like as good time….

the day she was born we had no idea we’d have so much to deal with. at the time it seemed huge. now it seems strange that it seemed so huge. we started noticing little differences as soon as she was born. most notably we saw webbing on a couple of fingers, short crooked fingers on her left hand, cleft tongue, and cleft palate. our wonderful pediatrician warned us that multiple anomolies that we COULD see often meant there were things that we COULDN’T see and they could mean she had a chromosomal abnormality. that could mean BIG stuff. she was tested for everything. ultrasounds, heart tests, blood tests, hearing, eye sight…nothing unusual. she was diagnosed with a random recessive gene thing that usually caused nothing other than what we could see and she had surgery to repair her palate, separate her fingers and remake her tongue when she was 10 months old. it wasn’t fun, but it certainly could have been much worse…even the random things we delt with could have been more serious. they told us that we would have to have another surgery when she got older to straighten her fingers. but since then, her fingers have become so uniquely “katy” that no one, including her, wants to change them. i call them her kissy fingers because three of them come together and are the same length and i can kiss em all at once. i had a print made recently that i can wear around my neck. katy’s kissy fingers are the BEST.

so…now she’s nine years old. and she’s loving and funny and so cute (can i say that even tho everyone says she looks just like me??). katy is perfect just exactly like she is.

…and we had a special dinner at home

with some special guests.

Anne Louise stopped by before the main event started for a sneak peak. Ella Grace is just a bit too young for the experience!

The whole court!

“Princess Clara Kathryn Pass…”

After the formal presentations were finished, Katy hit the dance floor with all of her “main men.”

Pop Pop…

…and here’s Grandpa

…and Pa,

and her Daddy!

Then she shook it loose a little on her own with some of the other princesses!

We had several great friends join us for this special evening. Among them were Richard and Laura Behr, Tim and Krissie Womble, and Rachel Waldrop (and her date ;o). Laura is the friend whom I have known the longest-since elementary school! That is Laura and me above.

And here’s the princess with Krissie

…and now she’s an orange belt!!