Nashville--day4

So far, so good.  I've totally known where I'm going all day.  The kids even figured out how to get to the pool all by themselves!  I've rather enjoyed observing all the other lost people.  Chilly and cloudy today, and we haven't left the compound.

I identified the tree.  It's a magnolia!

Sarah doing crafts in front of the window



Mike watching Noah play his new jaw harp.

                                                                I love these guys.

A few hours later...well, I spoke too soon.  Shouldn't have gotten so much pleasure out of those other lost people, because sure enough, I ended up getting lost myself.  This place is absolutely amazing.  Never seen anything like it.  Looking forward to going home.  

Note to self: don't look in those hotel mirrors that light up and magnify every detail of your face.  You do not need to see all that. 

I love the South!

Everybody says hello, and most of them call me "Honey" or "Sweetheart" or something like that.  Everyone holds doors for me.  Yesterday during the brief time that I was accidentally driving the wrong way on a one-way street, nobody honked or gave me the finger.  They just moved over to let me by.   They were probably saying, "Aw, bless her heart, she must be new in town."

Nashville-day3

It rained all day, so we went to the Adventure Science Center.  I had to drive about 12 miles across town in the pouring rain and four lanes of heavy traffic, and the kids were firing questions at me about how grits are made and what does that billboard mean and how long has God existed.  I'm definitely ALL about eduation in every situation, but I had to tell them this time that I was unavailable for conversation until we got to the museum.

It was worth it, because this was a great place!  Not even very expensive.  Noah got up close and personal with the dinosaurs.  Sarah wasn't interested, so she said, "I'll be at the intestines!" (which you'll see coming up)

 Sarah's favorite place: the intestines.  She liked it because it made a farting noise when she came out.

                                               Sarah measuring how high she can jump.

 

                                                    Noah on the moon gravity simulator.

                                                Watching the rockets they just launched.

                                                                    Sarah being Sarah.

Binoculars at the pinnacle of the adventure tower, which went up above the roof and was very hard for moms to summit.  I only saw one other adult do it, and it was a grandma who's in better shape than I am.  The slide down was just as tough as the climb up, because it was a very tight spiral.  I had to help Grandma get her feet in the slide.  After I slid down, she was waiting to help me out, and we had a little victory hug and went straight for the water fountains.

Noah and I played Mindball, where we strapped sensors on our foreheads that measured brain waves.  We were supposed to think the ball to the other side.  The kid beat me every time until we switched sides.  Then I won. 

                        I was Player 1.  Notice my inactive brain waves compared to Noah's.

                                                        Dr. Noah working on a patient.

Sarah was missing for awhile.  She told me she was going to the top, but when I went to look for her at the top, she wasn't there.  I finally found her on the bottom floor playing with Tinker Toys, and SHE was mad at ME!  She was pretty much ruined after that, and we didn't stay much longer.

                                            trying to catch the parachute man they released

                                                            strumming the giant guitar
By the way, I only got slightly lost one time today, and that was within the giant hotel complex.  My goal for tomorrow is to know where I'm going all the time.

If gross, immature things bother you, skip this one

We were making shadow puppets on the wall last night.  We made the usual dog, bird, swan, etc.  Then somebody figured out that you could use other body parts to make shadows too.    Here are the hills of Tennessee:

Noah said, "Do you want to see fog over the hills?"  I yelled, "No!  No fog!"  Mike said, "Just make sure no logs roll down those hills," which made the kids howl with laughter. 

Kids are fun

At the pool yesterday, I was wearing my usual swimwear, which covers more square (or should I say round?) footage than most people's swimwear.  That's how I met Stella.  She paddled right over and touched my arm and asked, "Why are you wearing clothes in the pool?"  I said, "This is my swimsuit.  Do you like it?"  She looked at me skeptically and said, "Uh huh.  What's your name?"
"Janel. What's yours?"
"Stella."
I couldn't help but do my Marlon Brando "Steeellllaaaaa!" impression.  I'm sure she didn't get it, but she laughed.  I asked her how old she was.
"Four. How old are you?"
"41."
Without hesitation, Stella announced proudly, "I can count to 41!" and proceeded to start doing just that.   Somewhere around 27, her mother intervened and rescued me.  I went outside and got in the hot tub with Mike and watched Noah playing with his new friend Zi.  Sarah had introduced us to Zi and his family by making friends with his Dad in the hot tub.  I had been inside and looked out to check on Sarah and found her chatting happily with a guy with shaggy purple hair, lots of tattoos and scars, and wearing black nail polish.  I joined them, and ended up meeting the whole family.  They were really nice. 
So after about 45 minutes, I went back inside, and Stella greeted me like I was a rock star.  She yelled from the pool, "Hi, Janel!" and looked absolutely thrilled to see me.  She wanted to play hide and seek in the pool.  There weren't many (any) hiding places, so that got old pretty quick.
I picked up a weird pinecone-ish kind of thing that fell off a tree by the hot tub, because I wanted to bring it back with me to try to identify the tree.  I set it down with my stuff in the locker room, and a little girl came along and picked it up.  Her mom got out of the shower and said, "What is that? Is it yours?" The girl nodded and gripped it firmly.  The mom said, "Ok, let's go" and off they went.  I wonder what kind of tree that was?  Maybe I'll try to identify it today. 

Nashville--day 2

Much better today.  I spent considerable time studying the map, wandering around, asking questions, and getting a little lost, but not completely lost like yesterday.   It helped a lot to realize that this place is similar to Methodist hospital (except this is way bigger) where there are different elevators for Hamilton and Crescent.   This place has different elevators for Cascades, Garden, Magnolia, and Delta.  We have to take the Magnolia 1 elevator down to the second floor and then switch to the Garden elevators.  Today I found out that the Magnolia 2 & 3 elevators don't go all the way through to where our room is.  This is our journey to the pool.


Our room is all the way down at the end of this hall.  We have to go down several of these before we get to the more exciting part: the Garden Conservatory.

 After walking through the whole Garden Conservatory (which has a river!), then we walk a long time down this curving hallway,

 down some stairs,

 and finally, there's the pool.  It's a nice pool.  Worth the trip.

 The lifeguard gave them some goggles and water noodles.

 

 

There was a rainbow around the sun.

 Noah tried out his new handfins that he bought at a garage sale for a quarter.

Looks like Sarah is kicking that kid in the face, but she really isn't.

 Foamstache in the hot tub.

 We stayed in the pool all day until Mike got there. 

 

We finally got out of the pool and ate at a pizza place in the hotel.  Noah spent some of his Nana&Papa money to buy a jaw harp.  He's been twanging on it all day.  All this southern honky tonk music must be getting to him.  I'm already slipping into my southern accent.  Y'all come back tomorrow, y'hear?

 

Nashville--day 1

This is how Sarah packed for the trip.  She grabbed the clothes off her floor and stuffed them into a suitcase. There are about 4 pairs of pajamas, lots of underwear, and a flashlight.  I added a swimsuit and left it alone.

Stopped at Green Creek Rest Area somewhere near southern Illinois.  It was a beautiful day, and we were tired of sitting, so we played for awhile. Sarah danced, of course.

Noah found a bug and made a habitat for it out of his empty snack bag.



We stumbled upon a geocache totally by accident!  We've purposely searched for them before and not been able to find them, so this was pretty exciting!  We took a couple beads and left a feather and a card with Bible verse on it, then Mike put it back in its hiding spot.

It was at the base of a very tall tree.

 This is the picture I wanted.  The following two are the outtakes from the effort of getting the picture I wanted....

 Back on the road, we saw this amazing cross near the intersection of I57 and I70.  Looked it up online and discovered that it's the largest cross in the world (198 feet tall)!  It was dedicated and illuminated for the first time just 5 days after September 11, 2001. It turned out to be the first of three unusual crosses I saw on the way.  I knew God was blessing our trip.   

 

Can this be the same child we used to have a pack a potty for when we travelled?  Now we have to pack electronics.  Lots of them.  Here he is listening to an mp3 player while playing on the ipad.

Sarah reading in the back.  They needed a little separation.

 

 I checked out a bunch of new videos for them to watch, but they spotted an old favorite in the DVD case and wanted to watch that instead.  I couldn't believe it.  The tweens STILL love the old Baby Genius video "Trip to the San Diego Zoo".

 

 

 

 When we got to Nashville, things went downhill.  The hotel is more like a small city.  We got lost on the grounds on the way to check in and ended up having to exit the whole place, do a u-turn and try again.  Got checked in, drove to the parking lot, listened to an automated voice tell us repeatedly to swipe our room key to get access to the parking lot.  After much swiping, flipping, pushing buttons, reswiping, backing up, pulling into the other lane, more swiping...we finally got parked.  Couldn't find a luggage cart, so hauled our luggage all around this massive place, got lost too many times to count, asked several people for directions.  At one point Sarah dropped the one bag she was carrying and just refused to go on.  Noah added it to the 3 bags he was already carrying.  Finally found our room, which is small and unimpressive compared to the rest of the compound.  Mike and Noah made another trip to the van for the last of the luggage while Sarah got lost looking for the ice machine.   All day, Sarah had been wanting to swim as soon as we got here.  Mike and I went on a recon mission to find the pool (seriously needed a break from the little people by this time).  The outdoor pool pictured above is lovely but closed for the season.  The other pool is literally at least a mile from our room.  By the time we got back to get the kids and walk all the way back to the pool, it would have been closed.  Went to bed.  Overall, a very good day with a not very good ending.  Will pack up and make the trek to the pool tomorrow.