to Atlanta and Home

We're on our way home and this time, I think we were a little smarter. We didn't leave Blue Ridge until 8:30, there was no rush, and I wanted to stop by the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. I'm glad we did. It was perfect timing for pre-lunch to naptime.Our kids were well-behaved and in awe. This was the "Ocean Voyager" aquarium on our sides and all above us.Nathan getting some crawl-around time before lunch and he just happened to love the glass wall separating our eating area from a 20' drop below.
This was the "Tropical Diver" aquarium...Katherine's favorite fish was the purple and pink one.Overall, it was a good trip and it provided much needed practice.

Back home with regalia

Since we've been back, our children have shown true signs of loving to be back home. Nathan is back to his adorable and lovable self, sleeping for 10-12 hours at night, and Katherine is her well-behaved and cuddly self.

We're looking forward to graduation on Saturday. Nate-man will have to hear about it when we get back. Tonight, I explained to Katherine what the graduation was going to be like: lots of people talking about boring stuff and then we get to watch daddy walk across the stage. It was the perfect opportunity to introduce words like graduation, University of Florida, college and regalia. Speaking of regalia, have you heard my regalia story?

Now don't think for a second that while attending The University of Florida there's a mandatory meeting on what the term 'regalia' means. I'm warning you, this story might make you lose faith in my abilities as a functioning adult with two children.

When graduating with my B.S. I kept getting all this paperwork re: regalia. Yeah, yeah, who cares, don't have any idea what that word means. When do I pick up my cap and gown? I've ordered it, paid for it and selected my sizes. Small town high school had caps and gowns waiting for me in the gym. I put them on about half an hour before the ceremony, had time to hang out with friends and was good to go. I was an honor student so I had my act together with gold cords.

So fast forward to my first graduation from UF. My parents and family members are there somewhere in the audience and I show up looking cute. Sweet little black dress, high heels, hair and make-up are right on and some bling to complete the outfit. I'm late, of course (not much I did while attending undergrad was on time), bee-bop up to my friend Cheryl who's been standing in line for about 20 minutes and ask, "Where are the caps and gowns?"

She returned my air-headed question with a look of horror and very calmly said, "Kelle, you were supposed to pick them up 3 days ago in the Hub. We're about to walk into the stadium in about 15 minutes."

My dingy smile quickly turns into a "What? When did they tell me to do that?"

"Kel, you can't walk out there without a cap and gown, you might as well go find your family and sit it out."

"Do you think the Hub is open now?" (It's a Saturday. They're never open on Saturdays)

"Uh NO!"

"I'm gonna see."

Paint this picture in your head: Tight little black dress, with hose and high heels, pretty hair and make-up girl running 1/4 mile to the Hub, all uphill. Bling bouncing. She doesn't care.

I get to the Hub and it's closed. I frantically start knocking on the door and there's no sign of a living person. After about 2 minutes of knocking, someone peers from around the corner and mouths, "We're closed."

In a voice a little louder than normal, I politely reply with "Oh I know. I'm supposed to graduate in 15 minutes and I forgot to pick up my cap and gown. I ordered it and paid for it so it should be in there."

A slight eye roll and walking to get keys to open the door later, they let me in, found my order and I thanked them profusely.

Now, run back 1/4 mile to the stadium, downhill, trying not to trip or mess up hair or make-up too bad (I've got pictures afterwards). I make my way into the back hallways, find Cheryl, put on gown and cap and borrow a bobbie pin or two. No exaggeration, we started walking in while I was putting in the last bobbie pin.

Thankfully, my husband is much smarter than me, and knows what the term regalia means. As I type, I'm looking at it folded neatly in a plastic bag sitting on the desk next to me. I hope to broaden my children's vocabulary a little more.

to Helen and Blue Ridge, GA

Our stay in Dillard was beautiful. I left the last post with the happiness of two children running around a new hotel room like crazy wild banchees (what are banchees anyway). Then the unhappiness started. Little man isn't used to staying up much past 8:00 and the craziness was going on past 9. So, when daddy got back, I put him in charge of putting little man to sleep, because my attempts were futile. It was then my responsibility to keep little miss quiet and still so she would go to sleep soon after he did. That is certainly one hard aspect of hotel living: no separate rooms. Jim did a fine job walking around outside, trying to avoid annoying our neighbors on the one side of us, and finally got him to sleep. Katherine followed suit soon after. It was a very busy, full and long day.

The next morning was when it really got hard. (And try not to laugh or roll the eyes too far back, those of you with more than two kids). Jim left early that morning for whitewater rafting and left me the uber-responsibility of feeding both munchkins, packing up all our stuff, loading it into the car and checking out. Ugh, just typing it conjures up not-so-good memories. (And in his defense, he would have had the whole car packed but we needed 90% of it that morning). So, without going into detail, Nathan was extremely upset with me by the time we left, which was his nap time. It was hard and thank goodness L, one of our friends that we met up there, offered to feed Nathan his bottle to calm him down.

Whoo hoo! On to the next adventure. We headed to Helen, GA. The Helen, GA website uses the description, "Mountain Beauty with a touch of Bavaria" and gives a little history on how it started: In 1968, local businessmen met to discuss what could be done to improve their town. They approached a nearby artist friend, who had been stationed in Germany. He sketched the buildings, added gingerbread trim, details and colors to the buildings, giving an Alpine look to the entire town. In January 1969, business owners and local carpenters began turning ideas into reality. Now all downtown stores have been renovated and many buildings and cobblestone alleyways added. Faces of buildings were painted with scenes of Bavaria and North Georgia, mirroring the migration of early settlers.
In one of the stores, an article went on to further explain that all the changes happened before Government subsidies, commission meetings, zoning regulations, city permits or Associations to deal with.Thankfully, Nathan slept the whole way there, Katherine was enthralled with a video she's seen at least 23 times, the rain was gentle and sounded like music, our car was quiet inside, handled the winding mountain roads like a commercial and the view was spectacular. I was tempted to take a picture of a covered bridge, but it was raining. I still should have. Helen was a nice stop. Enough to let the munchkins stretch out their legs, grab a bite to eat, take a potty break, change some diapers and head off to Blue Ridge. Some sights along the way.Again, timing is sometimes EVERYTHING! Nathan and Katherine both slept on the way to Blue Ridge. The view, again, was awesome, car finally quiet after I convinced Katherine that all she needed to do was just rest her eyes, not fall asleep. Our trusty Garmin, who I've nicknamed Rhoda (thanks Mom), is very nice to have along. This coming from a tried and true, card-carrying, trying-to-get-my-license-in-Surveying, blue-blooded, registered and paid the fees, annoyingly large map lover. The display screen needs to be quite a bit bigger than the 3"x2" though, and preferably one that behaves like a hologram. It appears only when you need it then disappears.

So we get into Blue Ridge, our hotel was beautiful and I wonder-womaned it by unloading the whole car in two trips with a luggage cart and two children. Nathan was excited to ride on top of all the luggage strapped safely inside his car seat and Katherine just wanted to pull along her princess suitcase that rolls (packed with baby doll stuff of course).

We had some more crazy wild banchee moments, new hotel room of course, and waited for daddy. We met our friends at a little restaurant on the Toccoa river and did our best to enjoy their company inbetween dealing with a busy 3-year-old who'd been strapped in a car seat half the day and a pre-walker that had started to cut 3, yes I said THREE, teeth while we were up there. I shared with our friends, that it's at times like these that I feel I'm being misrepresented. What do you mean, Kel? Oh, some other super-human parents might be able to do this, but neither Jim nor I have the ability to have a productive adult conversation when:

• fists full of hair are methodically being ripped from a scalp (mainly mine)
• a toddler hopped up on boredom is doing gymnastics on the rickety wooden chair causing herself to almost fall off or mutilate a body part
• approximately 52 questions are being asked while I'm trying to talk to another adult, most having to do with if she can take her shoes off
• the pre-walker wants to do nothing more in the whole wide world than climb up on top of the stone hearth and head straight for the soot-lined fireplace protected by a flimsy 'iron curtain' or single-handedly 'take down' the restaurant's audio system by dismantling their satellite radio box
• and neither one of them is interested in keeping their voices below whatever decibel level it is my hair dryer operates at.

Sooooo, we talk to other very interesting and comical adults in shifts. We are a team, but not a team. Our team-playing abilities come in when shifts need to be taken; our lack of team-playing abilities are exhibited in our one-person conversations we have with friends. We used to be able to talk to adults as a husband and wife team. But, as you can imagine, it's been put on hold for who knows how long.

Our first night in Blue Ridge was worst than Dillard. Little dude made it very clear that he doesn't like sleeping anywhere else than his own bed in his room, but this time we were in a hotel on the second floor with neighbors on both sides, above and below us. Not good. The twilight fairy finally spread her sleeping dust in our room and I was single-momming it again the next morning. It went a little smoother because I brought breakfast up to the room and we didn't have to pack up.

We stopped by a park in downtown Blue Ridge, enjoyed the sunshine and tried to rid ourselves of some energy.A true sign of being the second child.
It's getting much harder to get a picture of her when she doesn't want me to.Jim came back right before nap time, we all rested, and then we ate supper with our friends in their cabin. L can cook some grub now. It was delicious and the setting was more kid-friendly. D said I deserved a good shoulder rub so he put "the only thing he learned from the University of Florida" to work on my shoulders. There was not a care in the world during the beat down my shoulders got. Not even Nathan pushing over a beer bottle and wallering in it was enough for me to flinch.

Katherine saw a mountain stream for the first time and got to play in it.There was more craziness in our hotel room that night, but not as bad. Nathan made it even more clear that he was unhappy. I'm afraid if we would have stayed in hotels for a week, it would have progressed to having him committed. I had to get a picture of their favorite place to play in the room. Under the sink. It was like a little fort.The next post is our trip home and stopping at the GA Aquarium.

to Dillard, GA

For years now, we've been out of 'practice' of going on vacations, for obvious reasons. It takes trial and error to learn the little quirks and nuances of each person traveling, big or little. The following is my attempt at telling our vacation story, with pictures, quotes, videos and lessons learned all intermingled together.

We left Thursday morning at 4am. Yep, you heard me right, 4 in the morning. I heard from much more experienced travelers that leaving early meant more travel time with sleeping children. OK, I'll sacrifice my sleep needs for more peace in the car. Up at 3am, out the door at 3:58am. Great, right on time. Nathan wakes up at 4:30. WHAT! Are you kidding me? You're kidding right? All from the front seat with seat belt still loosely attached I try shushing him, rubbing his head and rolling the window down for 'noise' (now its loud and possibly going to wake up Katherine). I reluctantly climb to the back seat that was sooooo neatly packed, to show my peaceful, mommy face and smile him back to sleep. Not working. Fine, so he's awake. Get out the DVD player and find out that there's no way to attach it to the head rest without him being able to kick it thereby turning it off or opening it. It's starting to get funny, right? Not quite. I've been reduced to holding a DVD player for Mr. early bird at 5:30 in the morning only an hour and a half into our 8 hour trip. Did you know the sun isn't even up at that time? Our displeased countenances are showered with the familiar blue tint eminating from a TV screen. And, it doesn't work. At least not to keep him happy, but it did succeed in waking up sister. We managed to stop at an IHOP for breakfast at 6:30, were back in the car heading north at 7:30 and little dude was asleep at 7:45. Not a very good start to the day or vacation.

As you can imagine, my attitude went south quickly, and it took about 5 hours into the trip before I had a little heart-to-heart with myself. I knew that I had no control over anybody else's attitudes or behaviors in that car, except for my own. So, right before lunch time I decided to be a nice person. The rest of the trip went well. We arrived in Dillard at 3 pm, so our 8-hour trip turned into 11-hours.

Some interesting quotes generated from our car on the way there:
1. This is why people buy cars the size of buses.
2. Does it only take one 'stop' to mess up the whole car?

The Dillard House is beautiful. The facilities, restaurant, garden, flowers, stable for the animals and the scenery are all gorgeous. After supper that night we walked around the grounds and enjoyed some of the sights.

The view from our room.
There was almost an hour I was by myself with the kiddos that night and this is what mommy lets them do when daddy is away.






Helen, Blue Ridge and Atlanta are next.

Misc. +

A picture of Mr. rotten in action. See the smile?

I never had to worry about getting wet while giving Katherine a bath at this age. He is a non-stop splashing machine. Here are some action shots.


Katherine and I having a little fun with brother the night before we left for vacation. (That is her Hello Kitty bathing suit)
Katherine testing the twirl factor on another dress. The girl loves to twirl. I think we might need to consider dance lessons.
About 20 seconds of 4 close-in-age children, 2 brother-&-sister sets, playing nicely together, in a 25 sq. ft. area, with no bickering or physical altercations. Pure mommy bliss.


I'm working on the vacation post.

Catching up

Boy do I have lots to catch up on...

These were taken back on Jim's birthday and show some of Nathan's personality...
(I'm pretty sure the middle picture is the face he makes when he's pulling my hair or torturing the cat. Jim swears it looks like he's wanting someone to scream 'Uncle!' before he lets go of a first full of hair.)

I think he likes what he sees...

On Sunday, Jim was mowing the grass while Katherine was pushing around her shopping cart searching for rocks and grass to buy. Nathan wanted to go outside also...


Nathan got to go outside, now he doesn't want his knees to touch the grass...
Nathan ready to drive, anything...
Sunday night, little lady came down with a fever. I'm pretty sure it was just a tummy bug because by Tuesday morning she was feeling fine. Although on Monday for her nap, I got some precious, worth waiting for eye-gazing time in with her. She asked me to cuddle her for her nap. I was more than happy too and after some fidgeting around we ended up facing toward each other. Then, she said, "Mommy, I just want to look in your eyes." I got the chance of a lifetime to gaze into her 3-year-old beautiful big blue eyes, uninterrupted, with the soft sunlight filtered through sheer window shades. She willingly looked into mine, was still and quiet and let me gaze into hers. I studied everything about her eyes and they were beautiful. Her pupils kept changing size, even though the light was constant in the room. Her irises are stunning: colors of medium to dark blue, with splashes of green and light grey and I'm pretty sure I saw some silver. I saw my own reflection when my focus changed and her eyelashes are so long and plenty. Then the blinks started getting longer and heavier. She fought it for a while and the last blink led her to a very needed and productive rest. I gently caressed her face, careful not to wake her, and watched her some more. It was another perfect moment to pray for my child. I cried to God with overwhelming thankfulness for my children's health. Her tummy bug was nothing compared to other friend's and family's battles they've had to face with their children. For some reason, God's will for our lives right now is to have two very healthy children, and I am so grateful. I loved getting the chance to stare into her eyes and I'm glad I chose not to clean the floors that afternoon. That's 15 minutes I'll cherish forever.

Tuesday we went to go visit our friends at their timeshare at the beach. It was an hour and a half drive one-way, but worth it. I waited until Katherine woke up from sleeping in and asked her if her tummy hurt. It didn't so then I asked her if she wanted to go to the beach. (Insert: wild, crazy, jumping around and screeching here). So off we go to the beach to meet our friends, the E family. They were so helpful and made the trip extra special, because I certainly wouldn't try a trip to the beach by myself with two small munchkins. The kiddos must have had so much fun because neither of them slept on the way home. Uh, what was up with that? I would have suspected that the combination of sun, extra exercise and the quiet, still and comfy car seat would have done the trick coming home. What do I know, I'm just their mother.

Nathan is cutting a fourth tooth. His two 'central incisors' on the bottom are in and it looks like his two 'lateral incisors' on top are coming in, which makes for funny pictures for a couple of months. Wednesday, he surprised me with letting me cuddle him to sleep for his afternoon nap. I'm sure the crying was because of his tooth so I was more than happy to hold him and calm him down. He very sleepily gazed into my eyes, blinked for long periods of time, was ever so still and a warm feeling came over me. I thought I should get up and maybe try cuddling with him in our bed so I could rest also and as I got up, the warm feeling started to slide down my leg. Yep, you guessed it, poop. I immediately tried to squat to lessen the effect gravity might have to avoid it landing on the carpet, and not disturb my sleepy prince who might be up for cuddling. Ok, so now what do I do? Squatting, with warm poop on my thigh, holding an almost asleep baby: I made the decision that the poop was more important. I put him on the changing table and used the wipes to start cleaning myself and the little bit that eventually fell on the floor. Long story short, after all the excitement and a bath at 3pm, he wasn't up for cuddling or anymore of a nap. Blasted poop.

Little guy decided to bust a move listening to 'Row, row, row your boat,' (I still haven't figured out how to edit videos so there are some not as interesting parts I would like to edit out)...

Wednesday was also special because my grandma got to witness me speaking directly to the wall, about 6 inches away from it, because I was pretty sure the wall would listen more than my daughter was. Grandma looked a little concerned for me at first, but then realized that I was actually behaving fairly normal, or at least she thought so also.

Friday, Jim received an email from the grad school with this message, "
-->Your final submission has been reviewed and has been accepted by the Editorial Office-- congratulations!" Whoo hoo! August 8th is graduation day and short of a couple phone calls and picking up regalia, all that's left is walking across the stage. He's stoically excited. For those of you who know Jim, that totally makes sense.
That morning, my friend Amy stopped by with her 3 girls. We've known each other since middle school. That is one of my favorite things about living in the same town I was raised in: 'old' friends. Our kids had a fun time outside playing in the kiddie pool. Nathan insisted on being a pure boy and continually splashed the little girl 3 weeks older than he. Katherine had fun playing with the girls her age and 3 years older. They are cute girls and I always enjoy visiting with their mommy. We were also roommates in college for a couple years so we always have lots of stories to laugh about and we know enough about each other's quirks, weaknesses and strengths. It's a little chaotic at times with 5 of them running and crawling around, but my tolerance-meter must be on the verge of breaking or just plain about to give up because it doesn't bother me anywhere near like it used to.
Later that afternoon, Nathan woke up too early from his nap and I rocked him back to sleep. A little while later, he woke up again and I decided to trying cuddling. With a clean diaper, we snuggled in the bed and I peacefully enjoyed holding my little man until his nap was over. It was about 30 minutes of time with him I've been craving.

Today, we bought some landscaping materials to complete the play area outside and daddy surprised us with plans to go to Bamah and Papa's lake. On the way there, we were surprised to see this in the back seat.It's so sweet because their touching is still nice and loving. Now that they are able to touch each other, I dread the day when it's not with nice intentions.

So we went to the lake, swam a little, ate grilled hamburgers and hotdogs with the fixin's and sides and swam some more. Katherine inherited my carefulness in the water and the ability to attract every single mosquito in sight and Nathan inherited his daddy's lack-of-fear of the water. He's already eager to put his face in the water, most of the time while trying not to breathe. Constantly splashing anything and everything around is preferred, including his own face.

He still doesn't want to let his knees touch the ground (and the answer is no: he does not do this inside the house, only outside or other less-than-desirable-to-crawl-on surfaces)...

Daddy and daughter...
We had a busy and fun week. Next week will be busy again preparing for our trip to go whitewater rafting in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Although Nathan would probably like it, me and the kids are not going rafting, we're just going for the ride, beautiful scenery and company. Our good friends are going up there with their kids and grandkids (same ages as ours). Of all the fun things daddy would want to do, whitewater rafting is probably at the top. So, in honor of his graduation, we're taking a celebratory trip. We took a 10 hour trip with Katherine when she was 9 months old and she did better than we expected, so.....hopefully we'll be pleasantly surprised on this one also.