Wordless Wednesday

The Perks of City Life

Our family has been blessed to live in two really cool places.  When we lived outside of Charleston, we enjoyed a variety of local parks and playgrounds, a fun downtown area, a small-but-sweet children’s museum, and weekly visits to the beach in the summer.  Now that we are in Nashville, we are discovering that city life is not without its perks, either.  In fact, living in a city is turning out to be really cool.  As Exhibit A, I give you today:

Anna and I were planning to go to the downtown library for their weekly story time.  They have one at 9:30, 10:30, and 11:30, and we were planning on going to the 10:30.  However, a little too much time spent drawing, decorating, and making potholders at home pushed us a little behind schedule.  I realized en route that I didn’t want to break my neck (and stress myself out) to get to the 10:30 story time, so we decided to improvise.  We stopped off at a little playground on the way, enjoyed some play time, and ate an early picnic lunch:

This playground is cool because it is outside of the gym where Greg works out, has a very safe and visible outdoor walking trail, and shares a parking lot with (yet another) library branch (we are up to our ears in libraries around here.  It is awesome).  I realized while we were there today that our family could enjoy a nice Saturday morning at this place:  I could take the kids to the library while Greg worked out, he could play with them on the playground while I ran, and then we could have a picnic lunch (preferably with a blanket next time).  Sounds like a plan to me!

After we ate lunch, we headed down to the library for story time.  Regarding story time, let me just say, WOW.  I have been to many library story times in my day, but none of them consisted of musical numbers, juggling, puppets, interactive activities, and witty banter!  It was truly a delight!

We got there early, so I got a few pictures of the stage and room:

When the man and woman leading story time came out, they complimented Anna on her “rainbow pants.”  She was too shy to respond, but at the end, she gave the woman (Mary Mary) a big hug!

The little puppet peeping out of the top of the castle was so silly.  Anna was entranced!

The kids helped Pete make a rainbow with his rainbow bus.  Anna raised her hand to share her favorite color (which was purple):

At the end of the show, all the kids got to go sit on stage and sing “What a Wonderful World.” 

A wonderful world, indeed!

I realized that we would be driving right past the Adventure Science Center on the way home, and I decided to take advantage of our membership and swing by.  It’s a good thing, too, because Anna did not want to leave the library.  When we did finally leave, she informed me that, “First thing tomorrow, we are going back to this library!  And then we are going home to have breakfast!”  I told her we had school tomorrow, but we could come back on Thursday if she wanted.  But then, we headed off the Adventure Science Center:

Anna went down that huge, blue slide over and over!  She definitely got a workout climbing up the many levels to go down so often.  Luckily, I could keep her in sight the whole time even without going up, so I didn’t get quite so worn out.

Then, we headed home for a granola bar snack before rushing over to Dippin’ Dots (another local “perk”) to get small bowls of “the ice cream of the future” for the kids.  I think part of me felt a little guilty that Luke had missed all this fun (not that I was planning on telling him!), so I wanted to have a special treat for him when I picked him up.

Our fun wasn’t over, though.  Since it was a beautiful, 72 degree day, and since we live less than ten minutes from the zoo, and since we just placed membership there, I thought we would swing by to hit up their awesome playground.  Predictably, the kids were completely on board with this plan.

On the way to the playground, the kids were excited to see that the macaws were out.  They hadn’t been out on Saturday, so the kids paused to enjoy the beautiful birds.

And since the gibbons are across from the playground, we also had to stop and say hey to them.  They kids just love them.

Then, it was on to our new favorite playground:

We played happily until the zoo closed at 4:00.  Then we headed home, thanking God for the beautiful day and the fun city to spend it in.

Some other highlights of the day:

--Greg got to play his weekly basketball game with a bunch of other ministers and several members of our Leadership Team at church.

--Then, he enjoyed lunch at a local barbecue joint with his fellow Woodbine minister and two of our college guys.

--I chatted with a fellow mom in the carpool line at school who said that having a friend at school was “an answered prayer.”  She is on the PTO, and she and I are going to work together on a Teacher Appreciation Day in May.  That was exciting to me.

So clearly, we are enjoying our city life.  We got home a little after 4:00, and the kids played awhile outside, soaking up the last of this warm day.  Then we enjoyed some yummy soup, a recipe from a dear friend from Charleston.  As much fun as we had today out and about in Nashville, our delicious dinner was good to remember that there are some things that we can enjoy wherever we are.

Sweet Nothings

Luke has been in a huge "mama's boy" phase lately, and I must say that I am enjoying it immensely.  According to him, the highlight of every day is getting to see me after school, and the only reason he doesn't want to go to school each day is because he misses me.  He always comes to give me a hug and a snuggle first thing in the morning before heading off to play video games before school, and he is generally very affectionate toward me.

Tonight was no exception.  First of all, he cracked me up on an unrelated note when he described Anna's silly mood to me:  "If Anna were driving a car in that mood, she would run right off the road.  Even if she was forty, if she were driving a car in that mood, she would run right off the road!"  I thought that was a very unique way to describe his sister's silliness.

After a bit more conversation and kisses, we had the following conversation:

Luke:  What are you doing?
Me:  I just like looking at you.
Luke:  Why?
Me:  Because I am just so thankful that God gave you to me.  I still can't quite believe it, you know?  I'm so lucky.
Luke:  Yeah, and really, God gave me more to you than He even did to Daddy.  Because I grew in your belly, you know.
Me:  Well, yes, you did grow in my belly, but God gave you just as much to Daddy as He gave you to me.  You have just as much as your Daddy in you as you do your Mommy.  Half came from me, and half came from him.  That's the way it works.  But you did grow in my belly, and that makes me extra lucky.
Luke:  And I can't think of any other mom I would rather have than you.

Then he threw his arms around my neck and squeezed me tight.

Melt. my. heart.

Weekend with Emily

We were happy to hear that our friend, Emily, was coming to stay with us this weekend.   While in high school, Emily attended a church in Columbia, SC, that went to a lot of the same events that our church attended.  We first got to know her when she came to the Workcamp hosted by our church in Summerville.  She spent her afternoons that week at our house eating clementines and playing Sequence with me while we waited for the evening activities to begin.  She is now a Junior at Freed-Hardeman, and she was in town to see a friend’s chorus concert. 

Since she spent the night on Friday, she got to enjoy our family “pizza and movie night.”

She was amused at how the kids got pizza all over them while they were patting out the pizza dough.

The kids had fun putting the toppings on, and then we baked it and ate.  Afterwards, we popped popcorn and watched Meet the Robinsons.  It was a really cute movie, and the kids (and adults) enjoyed it. 

Greg tried to get a picture of Luke during a climactic sequence because I couldn’t see his face.  According to Greg, the picture didn’t capture Luke’s concern:).  He was into it!

On Saturday, it was chilly but beautiful, so we decided to make our first visit to the zoo.

After you come in, one of the first places you get to is the playground area.  And let me tell you, it is amazing.

But before they got started playing, we had to get some photos with the “animals.”

We aren’t afraid of crocodiles!

They probably shouldn’t be that happy to be in a snake’s mouth!

Luke is pretending to be attacked by the giant hippo.

After our photo ops, the kids enjoyed the massive playground.

Sadly, these nets kind of terrified Luke.  He was quite sure that he was going to fall through, although I tried my best to convince him that it was impossible.

He very much enjoyed the rest of the playground, however.

Afterward, we wandered up to the carousel.

Then, we went off in search of some animals.  In the car earlier that day, Anna said she wanted to see a piggy.  Well, a Red River Hog was the best we could do:

The elephants, however, were my personal favorite:

Luke and Anna enjoyed poking around this elephant skull:

Not many animals were out in the cold weather, so even though we had only seen two, we had already walked awhile.  Anna was starting to wear down.

She brightened up when we saw that the gibbons were out.

The gibbons put on a great show, complete with a primate symphony of noises.  We had a good time sitting and listen to them holler while swinging around and doing all kinds of tricks.

Then, we swung by to see the meerkats on our way to our picnic lunch.

After enjoying the meerkats, Greg went to get our lunch from the car while the rest of us explored the reptile house.  The warm humidity inside was a welcome change to the windy cold outside!

After our picnic lunch, we headed home to rest.  Anna actually took a big nap, which she never does anymore.  Luke and I curled up and read several books before he wandered off to build R2D2 out of Legos.  I went running and did laundry.  Emily went to her chorus performance.  Then, we all met up at Olive Garden for a delicious dinner.  By far the best part for the kids was the Black Tie Mousse cake at the end:

Then, it was home for baths and reading Junie B. Jones in front of a warm fire.  And now the kids are tucked into bed.  We’ll see if Anna ever goes to sleep after that nap….