Tennessee Trip

There's a lot of catching up to do since we last spoke.

Lincoln's prayer on Sunday night was as follows:
Dear Jesus, thank you for this day. Forgive us for our sins. Thank you for my warm, comfy bed, for my buddies, for my room, for my bunk beds, and for my warm house. In Jesus name, Amen.

We all had a fun, full weekend with the Hopwoods in Tennessee. Lincoln and Lydia travelled quite well. What used to take me 8 hours now takes us 10, but that's cool. Lincoln and I got to visit Lipscomb and spend a few minutes with my college advisor, Dr. Lowrance. Lipscomb is becoming a full-fledged research institution these days as far as the biology department is concerned. As far as the campus is concerned, it's expanding rapidly and there are some fantastic buildings that have gone up in the 10 years since I left.

We took a swing by the Nashville Zoo on Friday while the Hopwoods were at work and school.

(l) A cardinal landed in the tree right above me. (r) The gibbons were only active for a short period of time, but when they were, they could be heard all over the zoo. Notice their swollen necks. That's how they make their loud noises.

We got to climb up in the tree house that Uncle Jeremy built. Holy cow! He did a great job and after Lincoln got past the initial scary part of climbing a ladder in a tunnel, he had fun haging out a few stories up in the tree with his cousins.
Because Lydia is much more easy-going about sleeping than Lincoln was at 5 months, we decided to take a trip to Chattanooga to see the Tennessee Aquarium and Children's Discovery Museum and we left on Friday evening at bedtime so we could maximize our time on Saturday. We're crazy! But it worked out great! Neither Lincoln nor Lydia have had a day in their life with more stimulation than they did on Saturday. Thankfully Lincoln was able to get a nap in at the hotel between all the fun stuff.
Even Lydia enjoyed what she saw.The Tennessee Aquarium is really neat. They've done a great job putting exhibits together that are appealing to almost-three-year-olds as well as their parents. Lincoln really enjoyed Grace & Cole's company throughout the day, and the weekend. They each are very good with him and he likes the feeling of being a big boy playing with the big kids. They had a very neat butterfly exhibit, too.The Children's Museum is a place where parents can sit off to the side and let the kids explore on their own.

We ate lunch at a place called The Mellow Mushroom. Looking at the kitchen staff, the place is appropriately named. They make a good pizza, though, and Lincoln enjoyed watching the pizza dough flipping and spinning through the air.

An interesting thing that happened on the way down illustrated to Jenn and me that kids absolutely do listen to the lyrics of the songs that are played around them and they internalize them. These kids that say, "I don't listen to the lyrics, I just like the music!" are full of baloney! One of the songs on my iPod is Toby Mac's Lose My Soul, in which he and Kirk Franklin elaborate on the chorus, "I don't want to gain the whole world and lose my soul." About 20 minutes after that song had played and we were into other songs, Lincoln said from the back seat, "Excuse me. How do I lose my soul?" Jenn and I looked at each other. I started to say something like, "We lose our soul when we do bad things." But then Jenn pointed out that his little mind would conclude something like, "Oh, no! I just lost my soul three time today!" Wow! He asks some pointed questions!

As you may or may not know, I am observing Lent by fasting from sweets. Jenn was going to observe Lent by following the South Beach Diet. But after she felt quite crummy after 24 hours with any carbs, and then after she vomitted a couple of times in the morning of the second day, she decided to forgo the sickness and join me in abstaining from sweets. It was nice knowing you, SBD!

In the midst of all of the running around from here to there, we got to spend some slower moments with Jeremy and Emily. They certainly have a lot on their plate, and we were so thankful for their hospitality during the weekend. For more on what's going on with them, check out their blog. Em will have some neat photos up there that you won't find here. And I can't say it enough, Grace and Cole were fantastic cousins to Lincoln and Lydia over the weekend.Lydia has showing great progress in the past week with her balance. She's still not able to sit up for very long by herself, but I suspect that we're not far off. There has been no interest on her part in rolling over (we're 0 for 2 with kids that like to roll over on time) but she does show interest in using her tummy muscles to sit up and stay up. She's not showing any interest in her feet, is just now becoming aware of her hands (more so than just as instruments to shove her bib in her mouth), and she's laughed a couple of times.