The Nashville Zoo

I love zoos. When I traveled to the various races for work I took some time see a few of the zoos in the area. I have been to the Indianapolis Zoo a handful of times and when Jacques and I were in Spain for the F1 race we went to the Barcelona Zoo. I was a member of the San Diego Zoo when we lived in California and that is the best zoo around so sadly, all other zoos pale in comparison. Nashville does have a pretty nice zoo though so we became members last May and have gotten plenty of use out of our membership. Jadon loves animals (borders on scary obsession) so he also loves the zoo, which is a great field trip for all of us.

I have been wanting to take the kids to the Nashville Zoo for awhile now but it has been too cold. Friday however, was gorgeous - sunny with highs in the low 60’s and slightly breezy… perfect zoo weather if you ask me! This was a last minute trip and since Jacques was working he wasn’t able to go but I didn’t want to attempt this on my own so my parents came with me.

Once we got to the zoo I decided to wake Nathan up and try to feed him in the car so that he wouldn’t be screaming for food while we were looking at the elephants (did that once before with Jadon and don’t want to do it again). While I was nursing Nathan my parents were trying to figure out how to work the double stroller and entertain Jadon at the same time (comedy central – I should have videoed it). I have found that going from 1 kid to 2 kids doesn’t mean doubling the time to get everyone ready – instead it takes 3 times as long to get everyone ready. Case in point, it took 30 minutes from the time we arrived at the zoo until we were ready to walk into the zoo.

Non-summer weekdays are the best days to go to the zoo! Other than kids on school field trips, the zoo is pretty empty so you aren’t fighting through crowds to see the animals. Jadon had a blast! He was able to run all over the zoo in wonderful weather and see lots of animals. He was a little timid around the animals at Critter Encounters (the petting zoo) so it took awhile before he was brave enough to pet the goats but once he got started there was no stopping the little man until he had touched every goat in his line of sight. Nathan on the other hand slept through the entire zoo waking only once for a few minutes. Overall, it was a wonderful day!



A double stroller - my life is so crazy!





















The waterfall at the tiger exhibit was still frozen



He slept the whole time

Stingray Reef

Jadon’s not the only one going stir-crazy around here. The combination of working from home in the middle of winter with 2 little ones underfoot is enough drive me stir-crazy too. I can only watch Elmo’s World so many times before my brain goes numb. My conversation level hovers in the 2 year old range with the occasional cooing of a 10 week old so I long for adult conversations. This winter has been too cold for too long and while Clarksville isn’t Nashville it isn’t a small town either, so I am surprised there isn’t more to do. There is only so much for toddlers to do in Clarskville in the middle of winter, let alone things that toddler and parents can enjoy. Don’t get me wrong – we have a wonderful Children’s Library, but my idea of fun isn’t chasing Jadon around as he pulls books off the shelves and tosses toys everywhere. And don’t get me started on Chucky Cheese – it’s like ‘Elmo’s World: Elmo Goes to Vegas’ if there ever was such an episode. I am still recovering from the one and only time I was there.

Thursday night I finally snapped. I couldn’t take Horton Hears a Who, Play-Doh or requests for 5 bubble baths a day any longer. So when Jacques got home from work I told him to get in the car because we were going to Nashville. I figured we could check out Stingray Reef at the Opry Mills Mall. I like that kind of thing and so does Jacques and Jadon. So at 6:00 pm we loaded up the van and drove to Nashville –it was a fabulous ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ night!

Feeding the rays

First Merry-Go-Round ride ever

Looking at the snake

The Willies

There are a few things in this world that give me the willies if I have to smell or touch them so I obviously avoid these at all cost. And it would just so happen that these are ‘essential’ kids things – peanut butter, ketchup and Play-Doh. Call me weird if you want, but they literally give me the willies. My mom has Play-Doh at her house and Jadon loves it but I have refused to buy it. So it took great courage for me to buy Play-Doh the other day. To avoid touching it I was trying to help Jadon get it out of the tubes using a fork and then I was trying to help him mold things using a fork (for the record, that doesn’t work very well). I finally caved and used my hands (I thought I was going to throw up) then ran over to the sink and scrubbed and scoured my hands with soap until the small was gone. The things I do for my kids…

My, How He’s Grown!

I took Nathan to see Dr. Moore for his 2 month well check-up today. When he was born he weighed 8 lb, 5 oz and was 20 inches long. At 2 months he weighs 13 lb, 4 oz and is 24 inches long. He doesn’t look disproportionate to me, but he is 85% for height and weight and 5% for head circumference (Jadon was the same way so I am not concerned). He also got his shots today so I gave him a dose of infant Tylenol to help combat the ‘yucky’ feeling.

Jadon’s Birthday Party

When we celebrated Jadon’s first birthday we kept his party pretty simple. I didn’t know how he would react to a large party and certainly didn’t want pictures of him crying into his first birthday cake, so we erred on the side of caution and invited only family. Since my parents and brother were the only family we had in Clarksville the party was fairly small. I bought a Mexican feast spread from my favorite Mexican restaurant, wrapped a few gifts, blew up some balloons and made his cake. Jadon didn’t like ‘regular’ cake but liked angel food cake, so cut an angel food cake into three layers and filled them with pastry cream and strawberries, covered the cake in cool whip and stuck a candle on top. He dug into the cake and had a grand time. He only cried when we cut his hair before bedtime; speaking of which, cutting Jadon’s hair is quite the ordeal in his life. It is a 3 person job – one to hold him and his arms, one to hold his head and one to cut his hair. And it helps if all three wear earplugs to cut the edge off his screams. I am hoping this phase will end before his 30th birthday.

Given the comedy of errors my life has been these last two weeks I took no chances and was more on top of Jadon’s second birthday than I was Christmas. A week before his birthday I went to the party store and picked up streamers and dinosaur themed plates, cups, napkins and tablecloths. I also ordered the cake a week ahead of time and planned out the menu – I wanted this to be as simple as possible so that I wouldn’t run into a problem. The night before the party I pulled out the folding tables, reminded my mom to bring extra folding chairs and made out my ‘to do’ list. The day of the party should have been smooth sailing. I had scheduled the birthday cake to be ready by 3:00 pm and called Papa Murphy’s to pre-order the take and bake pizzas so that they would be ready for pick-up around 4:00 pm. I was planning on Jadon going down for his nap around the usual time at 12:00 noon, waking up around 1:00 pm – 1:30 pm and then taking him over to Ann’s so that she could watch him while I ran my errands and decorated the house since I did not want him underfoot while doing these things. I was still deciding on his gift at the last minute so I planned on a trip to Toys R’ Us before heading to Kroger for the cake, balloons and groceries. After I picked up the cake I was going to pick up the pizzas and head home to decorate. Jacques was going to be home by 4:30 pm so he would be able to pick Jadon up after I had decorated the house and bring him home shortly before everyone arrived for the party. I had also given myself a few hours of extra time in the schedule knowing that I might need them. I was ready to give myself a pat on the back for being so organized and on top of things.

My days revolve around Jadon’s naptime and Nathan’s feedings. From the start of one feeding to the next I have 2 hours so my errands can’t take more than 2 hours. And I can’t schedule anything around Jadon’s naptime, nor will I wake him up from a nap to get something done because then he won’t go back to sleep. And a child without a full nap is a cranky child by the end of the day. So his birthday, of all days, is when he fought and fought and fought his nap. He didn’t fall asleep until 1:30 pm. I wasn’t too concerned about it since I had scheduled a couple extra hours of wiggle room because this has happened before, but I really hoping that his nap wouldn’t last longer than his usual hour because that would be cutting it REALLY tight. So wouldn’t you know it – he slept 2 hours! Once he wakes up I need to give him about 20 minutes to ‘wake up’, so I knew that throwing him in his car seat when he first woke up from his nap wouldn’t work. About 20 minutes after he woke up we were finally ready to go and I was starting to stress – I worked so hard to make sure I wouldn’t be rushing around last minute and here I was, running around at the last minute. So as I was getting the kids in the car Nathan it would be the perfect time to cry for lunch. Great! So I had to get him out of his seat, feed him and get him back in his seat. But it gets even better – I got stuck behind a school bus trying to get to the main road and the bus stopped every couple hundred yards. Once I was FINALLY out on the main road traffic was backed up because of an accident. Three lanes were merging down to one lane and it took forever to get to Ann’s house. By now I had 45 minutes to get a gift, stop by Kroger and pick up the pizzas… not happening. So I called Jacques who was on his way home and asked him to pick up the pizzas. I ran to the toy store and as I was leaving I called Jacques and told him to get one of the pizzas in the oven and then called my mom to she if she could come early to help decorate. I ran over to Kroger’s to pick up the cake – it looked great! – and picked up the other groceries I would need while someone in the floral department blew up the balloons. I made it home with hardly any time to spare. My parents had already arrived at the house and were starting to decorate. Jacques left to pick Jadon up on I got home, which was a few minutes before everyone arrived.

We invited a few more people to Jadon’s birthday this year but still kept it really small since I didn’t want him to be too overwhelmed. My parents and Jacques mom and step-dad came as well as a few friends. Caleb and Amy have two little girls around Jadon’s age (we see them often and get together for playdates) and even though Adam and Tracy don’t have any kids, we see them quite a bit so Jadon knows them well. And since all of us go to the same church everyone knew each other. My plan to have Jadon home before everyone arrived didn’t work out so when Jadon walked through the door to a roomful of people singing Happy Birthday in a house decked out in streamers and balloons, he started crying. He got over that pretty quickly though and soon was running all over the house crazy-excited. He was too excited to eat pizza but not too excited for cake and ice cream… go figure! And of course he loved unwrapping gifts (he learned that one real fast at Christmas).

Enjoy the pictures!

Nathan

I haven’t written too much about Nathan but that is mostly because I only make sleeping all day and not sleeping all night sound exciting for so long. But things are progressing! He will be 9 weeks old this coming Monday – time has gone by so fast. He is such a content and easy baby. I don’t think he will be a serious baby but he isn’t the social butterfly that Jadon is. We moved him out of the co-sleeper in our room and into the crib in the office. I would halve preferred having the crib in Jadon’s room but Jadon likes to climb into the crib so it isn’t safe for them to be in the same room just yet. And that just baffles me – Jadon was so eager to get out of the crib and now that he is out, he can’t wait to get back in again.

Nathan is sleeping more than Jadon ever did at this stage of the game, thank goodness. Jadon woke up every 2 hours at night and Nathan is typically (but not always) sleeping about 5 hours through the night. Nathan started smiling around 5 weeks but it wasn’t so much a smile of recognition and that is what I have been waiting for. Yesterday when I walked up to his crib and said, “Good morning Nathan” he smiled and kicked his legs. Finally! That is such a wonderful feeling to know that your baby recognizes you and is happy to see you.

Happy Birthday Jadon!

Hard to believe, but today my little boy turns 2. Since Jadon entered the world he’s taken up all the space in the room (with his personality). He is delightful, funny, charming, and purely entertaining. That said, he is also extremely stubborn, strong-willed and tries my patience like nothing else. I wouldn’t trade him for anything and am so blessed that God gave Jadon to us.



A few minutes old



Taken this morning, 2 years old

Rental Cars

Rental cars… these deserve an entry all their own. When I picked up my rental car last Thursday I was supposed to get something comparable to my Camry. Since when is a Toyota Avalon comparable to a Camry? My Camry didn’t come with dual thermostats or warnings of icy conditions once I started the car, but who am I to judge what ‘comparable’ means? Which reminds me of a story…

I am no longer traveling to the races for work (trying to juggle those trips and a family is rather involved and more work than I want) but I have gone to about 35 races for GPT since October 2002. I have had my fair share of rentals cars, most of which were pretty memorable for one reason or another. So for those of you who are picking up a rental car for you next vacation, let me offer you a free travel tip: When the rest of the passengers on your flight head over to baggage claim to watch an empty carousel and wait for their luggage to appear, you should skip over to the rental car counters. Chances are no one will be in line since they are all waiting for their bags. In the time it takes you to get the car (which is inexplicably long no matter where you go), the bags will have arrived and all those passengers who got their bags first will now be getting in line for a car. Once you have the keys, waltz on over to baggage claim, where you can pick up your luggage without having to wait. Before you know it you’ll be zipping along the roads, yelling at the GPS because it is more lost than you are, while everyone else is still in line for their car. However, if the car company is off-site from the airport and you aren’t traveling with someone who can wait for the bags while you get the car, I can only offer this advice: Good Luck.

Such was the case when I went to Phoenix for the NASCAR race a few years ago. The big chain companies like Hertz, Avis and Enterprise are shamefully expensive so my company booked a rental car at a more reasonable rate through a company whose name I can’t remember but it is along the line of Jack’s Pretty Good Wheels. The office was in a rather shabby location and instead of a paved lot with numbered stalls, the cars were parked every which way on a gravel lot which was more dirt then gravel, if you get my drift. There were two people working the counter. One of them had no teeth so he was hard to understand. The other employee seemed to be moving along at a pretty good pace until the cops came in. They asked for Dawn and I thought, “I’ve only been in Phoenix for an hour and a half (waiting for luggage at the airport, which is a story in and of itself). What could I have possibly done wrong?” That was when the woman behind the counter said, “I’m Dawn” and then left to take care of the “incident that occurred last night,” thus leaving a long line of clients to one man who was slower than molasses on a cold day. When I finally got my car (I think the sun was setting) I was surprised to find the kind of car I had gotten. I was supposed to get an economy car – you know, a Geo Metro or something comparable. I had no idea that a Jeep was comparable to a Geo Metro… So I climbed in the car and drove out of the gravel parking lot hoping that the race weekend ahead of me was nothing like my experience in Phoenix thus far.

I also remember my rental car from the Kansas NASCAR race. I was hoping for something subtle – nothing that would stand out. So of course it would only make sense that I got a banana-yellow PT Cruiser. As you can imagine, I never ‘lost’ my car in any parking lot that weekend… And then there was the Richmond race last September. I was driving the clients to the race in a minivan, which only had me that much more nervous since I’ve been in those big tour buses and the drivers don’t give anyone an inch. I was imagining the nightmare I was getting into being a minivan in a sea of buses trying to leave the race (it really worked out well though because the attendants moved me to a different location near the gate for that very reason). Getting the minivan was a totally different story since I needed one with two rows of three seats and they had given away the only other one on the lot with those seat arrangements earlier (even though I called to confirm they would have the one I wanted that morning). I think I was the last person to leave the airport trying to fix that issue. I also requested a GPS – I have been to one too many races to know that the police can re-route traffic at the last minute and since I was driving in an unfamiliar location I could easily get lost if my directions differed from what the police decided to do. I think the GPS was more lost than I was trying to figure out how to get to my hotel from the airport. And speaking of buses and the track – do I have bus stories to share!

I actually have a lot of great stories to share from my trips (you can’t go to a NASCAR, Formula One or MotoGP race without coming back with stories!) But all these stories would fill page after page so I won’t share them here, but if something comes up in my life that warrants sharing one I’ll do so. Well, since I mentioned earlier that my experience at the Phoenix Airport was a story, I’ll share that with you:

Phoenix International Airport: Once you get off the plane you can expect to spend several hours wandering aimlessly around the baggage claim area, with thousands of other confused people, trying to find someone that can tell you what baggage claim carousel your luggage will be on. Electronic signs above each carousel post flight details so you would assume this would help you find your carousel number - don’t be fooled by this since the flight details are updated once a week. And don’t even bother heading over to the information desk to see if they can help you – all they will do is hand you a map of the Phoenix area. Every so often a voice will come over the loudspeaker announcing the carousel number for a particular flight. This is only announced once for each flight, and since this place is full of confused people who can’t stop talking loudly, you can easily miss it. At this point you may think the situation is hopeless, and it is, but I will share with you how you find the carousel your luggage will be on. First, look for some stressed out flight attendants behind a desk near the carousels - there should be a long line of passengers at the desk (this line could easily be confused with passengers standing around the carousels since they all run into each other). Once you have made your way up to the front, give them your flight number and they will check a computer screen and let you know the carousel number. At this point you may be thinking “it is smooth sailing from here,” but don’t get your hopes up just yet since each carousel has at least 23 flights worth of luggage on it. You can imagine the fun of trying to work your way through the crowd to get your bags, and it the process you might get run over by someone who has already found their bags, but this is all part of the Phoenix Airport Experience. Once you have your bags you need to get outside. This may seem like a simple task but remember, this is the Phoenix Airport Exprience. Surrounding the baggage claim area are waist-high glasses walls and there are only two openings through these walls through which you can leave the baggage claim mess. And trying to find these openings while getting through the crowd is no small task. Once you determine if you are to leave the doors through the South Entrance or North Entrance (I won’t help you here since you need to have some fun of your own) you wait with some several hundred thousand people as they look for their shuttles. This too is a mess, but at this point you don’t care since you at least have your bags. Once you leave the airport you can buy a t-shirt that reads “I’ve survived the Phoenix Airport”

An Update

One week ago yesterday was the car accident. When my Camry was on the tow truck the police officer guessed that it might not be worth fixing since the damage could cost as much as the car is worth (my Camry is a 2001). As depressing as that was, by the next morning I had already considered my car to be a total loss. When I went to the tow yard later that day to get my garage door remote, the owner thought that my car could be fixed for $2,000 and since the Kelly Blue Book stated the value at around $4,500, I begin to have hope that I might get my car back. Sometime over the weekend I came to the conclusion that I would get my car back and the total-loss verdict from the police officer was incorrect.

I talked with the insurance company yesterday and was told that my car was a total loss. At first I thought my hearing was going and then I thought she was confused - my car simply couldn’t be a total loss… but it was. The damages to my car were $5,100 and they offered $6,600 to me. That seemed to be a fair price so I accepted it. I sent the title overnight to the insurance company - they would cut me a check the day they received my title and then send the check to me 2-day FedEx. I was in a rush to get the title to them because their policy states I have 5 days from the day they make me an offer until I have to return the rental car, which would be this coming Monday. If I sent the title overnight I would have a check no later than Monday, vs. getting a check next Thursday or Friday if I sent the title regular mail.

So that gave us 5 days to figure out what to do. Jadon’s birthday is tomorrow, my baby shower for Nathan is Saturday morning and later that night we are having another birthday party with a few play date friends in the neighborhood– so Friday and Saturday were off the car shopping list, leaving us last night, Thursday and Sunday. We decided to move up from a sedan to a minivan since the two car seats in the back of the Camry were pretty tight, not to mention we were running out of room toting around all the things little kids need. Jacques and I had to weigh our options: $6,600 is not a lot of money to by a minivan outright, especially if we didn’t want a minivan on the verge of becoming a fixer-upper, but on the other hand we didn’t want a large car payment, which a new minivan would be. So we planned on meeting somewhere in the middle but letting God take control and guide us. God knows what is going to happen to us before it happens and I am a firm believer that he works things out for us ahead of time. I had no idea I was going to be in an accident but God did; I had no clue what we were going to do if the car was a total loss but He did. Jacques and I prayed about the situation on our own and together before we looked for a car.

Several men at church work at various car dealerships in the area. I would never ask them to sacrifice on their commission, especially with the automobile industry being as slow as it is right now, but I was hoping they would try to get us the best deal they could. One man owns a used car lot but his cars are typically geared for those with bad credit so the cars aren’t as new or as good. Another man works at the Honda dealership and their used vans were more than we were willing to pay. The other man works at the Nissan dealership so we went to see him last night. Jacques and I agreed that we didn’t want a car payment for much more than $250 and we didn’t want a loan longer than 4 years. In the end we decided on a ’05 Nissan Quest. It has 50,000 miles (I didn’t want more than 50,000 even though Nissan is a pretty good manufacturer) as well as some upgraded features like automatic doors, a DVD player and a few other things. Jacques and I had peace about it and the car felt ‘right’. I was happy to find out our credit was good enough to qualify for their best interest rate so with our down payment our monthly payment comes to $260 for the next 4 years (the letter from the insurance company was as good as a check to them so they let us take the car home and I’ll bring them the check as soon as I get it).

God was so good to us – he kept us safe in the accident and provided a minivan! We were able to get more of a down payment from the accident than we would have if we traded the car in. Our monthly payments are very reasonable and we got a nice minivan with lots of extras. I feel sorry for the man that hit us. His car was a ’98 and was probably written off as a total loss too. He probably wasn’t offered as much as I was given the fact that his car was older and he also had to pay out his deductible.

I went to the body shop today and gave my permission to release the car. I didn’t even get to see the Camry and as silly as it may sound, I would have liked to have seen my car one more time. I am now dealing with the medical portion of the insurance company to pay for my doctor visit – we have been trading messages so I hope to speak with her tomorrow. For now I have no idea if my insurance will go up at all until it comes time to renew the policy. I will also be returning the rental car tomorrow or Saturday so it looks like I’ll be able to tie up all these loose ends of the whole ordeal soon.

SNOW!

Yesterday we had ice and today we have snow!