Choo-Chooin' Around Chattanooga

We took the Choo-Choo Tour of Chattanooga this past weekend and boy was it whistlin' good time! WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Anyway, we went on a 6 mile round trip train ride through East Chattanooga on a 100 year old train, through a horseshoe tunnel which was built in the 1850's--before the Civil War- with dynamite and slave labor. We got to go through the train yard and check out all the other old, restored engines and cars, we got to see our engine turn around on a real life turntable (Jacob has one on his play train track), and do some other little things. Jacob loved the train ride, and I think next time, we'll be able to take him on a longer ride for sure! We wanted to start small in case it was a disaster!

Afterwards, we headed back to the Chattanooga Choo Choo to show Daddy the place, since he didn't come with us when Amy was in town. He thought the model railway was pretty darn impressive (and he's right)...we ate lunch in a pizza restaurant in an old train car, so that pretty much topped off our day of locomotive exploration.

The rest of the afternoon we played at the park on the North Shore of Chattanooga...and because it was a much warmer day than it has been lately, they had the fountains turned on for the kids to play in! Jacob didn't come dressed and prepared to play in the fountains, but I didn't care--we took off his shirt and shoes and let him go buck wild! Seeing him play in the fountain made me realize that God has answered a prayer with Jacob that I don't think I ever even prayed, but that I had wanted! Jacob just jumps right in there and plays with other kids now- it really started once we got here to Dalton a couple months back-he isn't petrified of kids he doesn't know now. He just gets in and plays and has a good time. I am so thankful for that, because, although many may not believe it, but I was reallllllly shy when I was little, up through part of high school, really. ( Then I broke out of my shell and some may wish I would have gone back in. ) I just remember when I was little, really wanting inside to do things, but being too afraid and shy to actually go do them. I didn't want Jacob to be like that too, because then you miss out on a lot of little fun things along the way!! Anyway, it seems we won't behaving that problem with him and I am so happy for that!!

Spring Break in Dalton

Amy came this week to stay with us since she was on Spring Break and since Jeff was on a field travel this week! She got to stay four days, which was nice because we had lots of time to wander around the area and see quite a bit of stuff!! Jacob was, of course, thrilled, since there was someone else around to play with and, most importantly, an extra set of eyes to be all on him!

We went to the Children's Museum on Monday, the library on Tuesday, Coolidge and Renaissance Parks (and the carousel), and the Chattanooga Choo Choo on Wednesday, and then to the outlets on Thursday! We really crammed a good bit of stuff in- hopefully Amy got a good feel for the area in case she and David ever want to come back!

Yesterday, we had an interesting thing happen---Jacob was watching TV while Amy and I were getting ready, when Amy heard some sort of banging coming from the living room, so she went to check it out. She came to get me in my bathroom to let me know that Jacob had fed his "blue goldfish" (in case I didn't mention it, Jeff and Lindsey-the original goldfish- only made it 5 days and then passed away, so Jacob got a blue betta fish) a little too much. Well, he had dumped the whole container of fish food in the bowl. That container of food would have lasted him a whole year, but instead, he had it all for breakfast. There was so much food in that bowl that you could barely see the fish. So we figured out that we needed to strain the food out of the water, because we couldn't just move the fish into a fresh bowl of water, since he might die of shock like the last ones did! So we strained the water a few times to get most of the food out, and then we put him back in the container we bought him in. Good enough. We left for a couple hours, and when we came back, Amy went in to see him and he wasn't in his container. He was lying on the counter--dead. We thought he jumped out and comitted suicide. But he didn't --well, he DID jump out of his container, but he wasn't dead. Just as I called Jeff to tell him the fish jumped out of water and ended it for himself, that fish started flopping around on the counter and it was so creepy!! Amy captured him with the little net we have and threw him back in his container and then we put the top on---the best move anyone had made all day with regards to the fish. In a nutshell, this is the best possible fish we could have gotten for Jacob because he is obviously invinsible!

You can't really tell in this picture, but this is the largest model railway in the world!


View of the garden area and train at Chattanooga Choo Choo (which is actually now a Holiday Inn)

Amy and Jacob at Chatt CHoo Choo

Posing on the bridge

Jacob running up the hue hill with a nice view of the bridges over the TN River in the background

The hill that we tried to wear Jacob out on--nothing wears him out though :(

On the carousel with his cowboy boots

Easter Extravaganza

1.) Please notice that I demonstrated a great amount of self-restraint by NOT naming this post "Easter EGGstravaganza".

Now that that's out of the way, we had a nice little Easter weekend--well, nice except for that the church we visited (yes, the church that we were so happy with and that I had bragged about did not end up working out:( ) was not so great- Jeff wanted to get up and leave in the midst of the Easter service-that's pretty bad. BUT ANYWAY, we know that God will lead us to the right church eventually, and will probably teach us a thing or two along the way!!

So besides the whole church thing, we had about 8 Easter egg hunts, we dyed eggs, and we made Easter colored scrambled eggs! Jacob also had a few Easter packages throughout the week to open from grandparents, so that really stretched out his Easter fun! His favorite parts of his gifts were the grass from the basket, and the stickers that my Grandma used to decorate the tissue paper she wrapped her gift in (it was her attempt to have holiday-appropriate wrapping paper, without having to buy a new roll...little did she know, her makeshift paper was the most popular part of her gift) . The candy, clothes, toys, etc. were all secondary.

So, with the egg hunts, we just hid the eggs over by the creek that runs through our apt. complex and then Jacob could head over and find them-which he did very well. He caught on quickly and simply couldn't get enough of the egg hunt- phenomenon!

Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures this year of Jacob in his Easter outfit...we're not quite sure what happened, but when we picked him up from the nursery after church, his pants were SOAKING wet, I mean, we could have wrung them out they were so wet...so again, not quite sure what happened...but we didn't keep him in those pants any longer than he had to be! Maybe when the outfit's clean again, I will dress him up and snap a pic or two.

Jeff and Gabers dying eggs--magical experience.

First of many egg hunts

Mommy Easter bunny strategically hid eggs mere centimeters from the creek.

Showing off his bunny and carrot chalk from Grammy

Checking out what was inside his eggs


Cute


Found one!

You Thought That Was All Jacob Did in Saluda...

Jacob the bouncing baby boy! Hopefully I will get the video of Jacob jumping from Kristi soon and we can see how funny this sight really was!

There's more to Jacob's Saluda trip that I didn't share with you yesterday---here's some more...

Oh, WOW...Jacob found some friends it looks like!

Checking out the horses!

Big Boy train things

Cruisin' the strip

VIDEOS!!!!!

Kristi put the videos of Jacob in the sandbox and trampoline on You Tube, so here are the links..she also informed me that after filming the movie of the sandbox, Jacob and her little cousin Ben both had a "talking to" about not throwing sand!! Good for them!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYmUocij-sw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IfkERqdB-Y

As Kristi Says, "Jacob's Trip to the Big City"

What a PRECIOUS picture!!! (Jacob and Kristi's cousin on the trampoline--I can not even imagine how much he liked the trampoline)

Kristi was kind enough to send along a few pictures from Jacob's vacation in Saluda, SC this past week. I knew he would have a good time, but after looking at the pictures, I can't imagine why he wanted to come back and see little old Mom and Dad! Jacob got to play in a big house this past week (which he hasn't had the luxury of in quite a while!) with a big yard, plus, there were HUNDREDS of Kristi's little cousins right around the corner, all ready to play and share their toys! There were swing sets, trampolines, trains, and, of course, the main attraction, Kristi's dog Buster. Jacob had been talking about Buster for months--ever since he last saw Buster as a puppy back in South Carolina--wondering where he was, etc. Well, he was thrilled to find out that he was going to go see Buster at his house...and then he got there. Buster has grown up since then, and is no longer a puppy. That didn't sit so well with Jacob and Buster had to go spend the weekend at Kristi's Dad's house!

Anyway, Jacob had a great weekend and was supposedly a "perfect angel" (until the last minute) and Jeff and I were so thankful to have a little bit of free time thanks to Kristi and her fam!!

Saluda-style picnic wear...I kid, if I could live at Kristi's house with Ms. Meryl, I would definitely live in Saluda! Anyway, Jacob is obviously livin' the life we've all dreamed of!

The picnic of Jacob's dreams- a bunch of older kids hanging out with him--all eyes on him.

Jacob burrying one of Kristi's cousins in the sand pit!

Jacob and Kristi's cousins in the sand pit

This picture showed us that Jacob is able to sit in a big boy swing now--this is news to us

Ahhhhh, Saluda...trains and guns, what more can you ask for?

Jacob and a beater--he looks happy enough!!

Jacob on Ms. Meryl's giganto bed--and mini-Buster on the pillow as well--Kristi said Jacob loved the bed

Our Whirlwind Weekend in Nashville

Us kids at the Hermitage

AWWWWWWWW! Us at Fort Nashborough

Jeff and I got to go to Nashville this past weekend thanks to several people--here come my shout-outs- Grandma and Papa for letting us use their time share and Kristi and her family for watching Jacob while we were gone! Anyway, I was super excited about out weekend away because 1.) I have never been to Nashville 2.) Jeff and I got to be by ourselves which happens---never 3.) I would get to sleep in a little with no one to wake me up early (didn't work out, but oh well!)

We stayed at a condo that was within walking distance of the Grand Ole Opry, Opry Mills Outlets, and the Opryland Hotel. It was nice, but we didn't spend a lot of time there, as you will see by the amount of things we saw in our 2 day stay. Luckily, Nashville is in the central time zone, so we gained an hour on the way there...thank goodness, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to do everything we wanted to do! On Friday, we got there in time to eat at this restaurant with an aquarium in it (evidently, we thought we were still with Jacob) and walk around the 9 million gazillion sq. ft. outlet mall.

Saturday morning, the central time zone threw us off and we got up early and were in downtown Nashville at 8:30 am---note to future Nashville tourists: in a town where there is a pretty decent night life, don't expect to find lots to do early in the day. We walked probably 5 miles on Saturday, through the country music district, with the restaurants where the next big country music sensations play, and the honky tonks. We went to the pubic library, because that's where we parked and it was where Rachel Ray went to eat on $40 a Day. We went to the Ryman Auditorium which is the original home of the Opry. We went down and walked along the river. We went to Fort Nashborough, the place that marks one of the first white settlements in the area. We also ate an incredible breakfast along the way. Then we drove to the other side of town and went to a park where there is the world's only life size, to-scale replica of the Parthenon (in Greece). We walked around and up to the Parthenon, walked around the park and lake, and then back out to the street in hopes of finding some cool shops or something. I wasn't finding what I was hoping to find, so I called my trusty friend Rebecca, whose brother goes to Vanderbilt (in Nashville) and got her to ask him about where we should go and what we should do next! Well, her brother, Jonathan, ended up being a huge help, and kindly, offered to meet us and tell us about some cool things to do! We ended up seeing some different areas of town, going to a "gourmet" popsicle shop, and then eating dinner at one of the best restaurants I have ever been to, all thanks to our new found Nashville friend!

Sunday, we got up and went across the street to the Opry complex and went to the hotel to look around. It was, up to that point, my favorite thing we had done! It was a crazy hotel--it was HUGE--there was a river that ran through ONE of the FOUR atrium where you could take a boat ride, there were tons of restaurants, waterfalls, a town like row of shops--it just went on and on! WE got breakfast there, and it was also wonderful. Then we moved on, went back to the outlet mall to get Jacob a pair of cowboy boots, and were off again, to The Hermitage- Andrew Jackson's home. That was really neat, we probably liked that the best of anything we did there.

Then we went home...and lost an hour- thanks a lot eastern standard time.

So, you can see that our weekend was packed full of everthing Nashville!! And now we're tired, but thankfully, Kristi offered to keep Jacob for another day, so I get the whole day to myself---what a day!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jeff on Broadway-- the road where there are lots of honky tonks and boot shops

LP Field- aka the Tennessee Titans Field. View from across the river.

The Parthenon!


Jeff at The Parthenon


Us at the Grand Ole Opry


Scenery at Grand Ole Opry


Jeff at the ducky pond

Inside Opryland--a mini town!


Inside Opryland--a mansion on the cliff!!


Inside Opryland

Jeff at The Hermitage (I forgot to post pictures of our Hermitage trip!!)