PF Chang's

Grace's 6th birthday was on June 12, and we had her party the weekend before on June 8. We had her party at Ijam's Nature Center here in Knoxville. They host a really nice party there. One of the workers brought out several live animals, including a tarantula, a screech owl and, much to Betsy's dismay, a snake.

Ijam's Nature Center

Betsy comes from a proud tradition of ophidiophobia (I just looked that up. Go ahead--I know you're curious). When Betsy's youngest sister, Sarah, was barely old enough to sit upright, Betsy's mom, Susan, was playing with her out on their back lawn. Suddenly, Susan saw a snake slithering closer to her and her helpless daughter. Without an ounce of remorse, Susan jumped up, and ran in the house, leaving poor Sarah in the grass, directly in the path of the enormous, poisonous monster. Ok, it was probably just a small, harmless Garter snake. I don't know if that makes this story better or worse, but the point is that some of the Richardson women are petrified of snakes. In fact, we're not even supposed to say the word "snake" around Susan (sort of like Voldemort?).  

Oddly enough, mice are also notoriously afraid of snakes

Susan and her 3 year-old granddaughter--my neice--Julie were staying at my house in Colorado while Betsy and Katie (Hey Brian, watcha doin') were in China getting Grace in 2008. While we waited, we frequently took walks to Garden of the Gods park, a couple blocks up the street. One morning, we were walking through the park when a tiny, cute little snake crossed our path. I was pushing Julie in a stroller, and Susan insisted that I keep the stroller, containing her precious granddaughter, between her and the "vicious" reptile. It was then that I realized that if my own daughter was ever in mortal peril from a 20-foot python, Susan would feed Grace to the snake to buy herself time to escape.

Several years ago, Betsy was out mowing our front lawn in Colorado while I was in the house. Suddenly, Betsy scrambled through the front door, eyes wide with fear. Unable to even say what was bothering her, she crawled up in my lap and held me tightly. Finally she was able to tell me that she'd seen a snake curled under our living room window outside. She immediately demanded that I look up what type of snake it was that had frightened her so much. I dutifully got on google and asked her to describe the snake to me. She said she hadn't gotten a very good look at it, but it was brown. I said she had to be a little more specific, but she again demanded that I just look up the snake. I told her I'd found several pictures of potential brown snakes. At this point, she said she was too afraid to even look at PICTURES of possible snakes. I replied with some very insensitive retorts and told her to "just suck it up and pull yourself together, Betsy!" Now, this story may be a bit one-sided and biased. The truth is, I have an unhealthy fear of bees and wasps. I've been known to "scream like a little girl" (this hardly ever happens anymore) if one gets too close. So, we all have our little phobias. But the fact remains that if you try to scare my wife with a rubber snake, she will kick the shit out of you (after she is assured by a panel of unbiased observers that the snake is indeed not real).

So, in an attempt to break the cycle of snake freak-outattude, when Ijams brought out the Corn Snake for Grace's party and Betsy and her mom left the room, I made sure Grace could appreciate the reptile as a fellow member of the animal kingdom.

"Reptile-That-Must-Not-Be-Named"

We also went on a nice little nature walk and treasure hunt by the visitor's center and saw a large Barred Owl who lives in the area. Plus, we got to see tadpoles in the pond. I love having her parties somewhere she can learn about the world around her rather than someplace like Chucky Cheese.

The resident Barred Owl

After Grace got FAR too many presents and too much cake at her party, we went out to one of her favorite places to eat, PF Chang's. 

Grace used to just call PF Chang's "The Horses"

They have a gluten free menu there and the wait staff is AWESOME!! They are always very understanding about my tube and they bend over backward for me. 

Our server's name was Justin

Greg, the manager

I usually have beef and brocolli. The only problem was that I decided to get fried rice with my meal. This is one of those things, like pizza and baked potatoes, that I need to avoid eating out because it makes my blends so thick. Luckily I didn't have any blow-outs, but they had to put so much water in the blend to thin it down that I only ate half of it and took the rest home.

Betsy, Jimmy, some random 6 year-old kid, Katie, Susan