Nashville Family

While in Nashville, we had a great time seeing all the family. Here's a rundown of all the family we got to visit.

Sunday, Ashley, Jeff, Jeff's mom Pat and Pat's husband Carl all came over for dinner. Pat loves our kids as if they were her own grandkids. I was very excited to meet Carl. At one point, I simply walked through the room and heard just a piece of Kalyn's question, "Mr. Carl, why don't you have . . . " I didn't really want to hear what she was asking. I just kept walking into the other room. Who knows what she was asking.

Monday, we took my Nanny out to lunch. Okay, it was nothing fancy (at all). We picked her up and went to McDonalds. However, she loves to watch the kids play in the play area. It was a nice relaxing time to visit with her.

Tuesday, Mom's sister, my aunt Janice, came over for a visit. I must formally thank her for taking this picture - even though she's not a big fan of taking pictures. So, thank you Janice!!

Thursday, Mom's cousin Brenda came over for dinner. Unfortunately, I forgot to get a picture with her. It was a great chance to catch up and hear about what's going on with her.

We had a great time with my parents. We look forward to our next visit with you!!

It's a Zoo Up Here

The day began with a great workout with my brother-in-law, Jeff. He is a personal trainer and owns his own gym, so whenever we get a change, we love the opportunity to have a session with him. He has great ideas and is an amazing motivator. A couple of times he commented that I had "great form". Too bad I don't have "great strength" to go with that "great form." Thanks for my session Jeff - it was enjoyable (well, as enjoyable as working out can be).

From the gym, Ashley and I drove back home in time to head out to the Nashville Zoo. We were glad that it was looking a bit overcast and were hoping for a little less crowds. Again, it was a surprise to the kids until we pulled by the sign for the zoo. Then the excitement came! We checked out two visiting tiger cubs (Xander kept saying, "tiger cubs, tiger cubs" until we actually got to the exhibit), a performing elephant (he threw a football with his handler and let his handler climb up on his trunk), a great building of reptiles and nocturnal animals (including very cool bright blue frogs) and so many other animals. It was a lot of walking and the kids were troopers - as much as they could be.

Kalyn waves at the meerkats

The kids smile in front of three giraffe

Watching the elephants

The family

The zoo also had a great playground area called the Jungle Gym. There was a great jump zone for the little kids and a huge climbing session. Kalyn and I went down a long spiral slide together, Xander had fun on the swings, and Trinity, Kalyn and I ran through tons of steps, over bridges and throughout the playground. As we left, we had fun standing under the streaming fountains.

The girls climb through the playground

Fun in the jump area

What a great smile on Xander's face Trinity posed this adorable picture herself - they were a tad worn out
Check out the stream of water over everyone's head

We got home and Xander got to live out his greatest dream (of 2) - "riding" Papa's motorcycle. Xander loves motorcycles. He'll point them out on the road, perk up at the sound of one while we're driving and loves to play with them. When we arrived earlier in the week, my dad told Xander that he would take Xander on a ride on his motorcycle. The adults knew that "ride" translated into sit on, not actually move on it. Well, after days of anticipation, the time was here - Xander was going to ride Papa's motorcycle. He was so excited.


As he sat on the back of Papa's motorcycle, he kept saying, "Go Papa. Go Papa". Xander couldn't understand why they were only sitting in the garage, weren't going anywhere. It was slightly sad to see his disappointment that they didn't go anywhere. However, by the time he got inside, it was the best thing ever.

One more good day in Nashville.

Local Flair

Last night and today was a day filled with local fun. Last night, my mom suggested that my dad and I walk to Pied Piper while she stayed with the kids. I was all for a little break from the 3 munchkins. Pied Piper is a nearby, locally owned homemade ice cream shop. YUM!!! I had some great time with my dad to simply catch up and chat. Plus, the delicious ice cream was a nice addition. I ordered a concoction called Trailer Trash - vanilla ice cream with a mixture of Butterfinger, M&Ms, Crunch Bars, Oreos, fudge and a few more candy pieces. Delicious. I felt a little bad that the kids missed out . . . but not too much. (When we got back, we found out that they had enjoyed some popsicles of their own.)

We began today with a trip to the downtown library for storytime. We've been to storytimes in the Roswell and Woodstock areas, and they were enjoyable. However this one was over the top!! The two people who led it were amazing - complete children people. The time began by walking into a wonderful children's theater with an adorable stage across the front of the room and lovely red velvet curtains. This storytime was filled with juggling, hand puppets, songs, shadow puppets, rainbow-making and of course, stories. It was great fun!!

sitting in one of the cool kid chairs in the children's section of the library

Following a session of schoolwork, a lunch with family and naps all around, we put everyone in swimsuits and headed to one of the Nashville fountain parks. The kids had such a great time splashing in the shallow pool and running through the fountains in front of the courthouse. It was great to watch them run around, laughing, squealing and enjoying themselves.

We've had a great time enjoying some of the local treats of downtown Nashville

(and look forward to more as the week continues).

Nashville Bound

Saturday, the kids and I hopped in the car and drove up to Nashville to visit with my family while Craig is on the mission trip. It's an annual trip that we take and it's a good time to just relax with my parents, sister and brother-in-law. Usually we simply drive straight through, except for a stop for lunch. However, this year I decided to make a small detour in Chattanooga. I had spoken to my dad and he had planned to drive down and meet us for a special treat for the kids. Craig and I decided to buy an annual pass to the Chattanooga Aquarium and Saturday would be the day that we bought the tickets and made our first trip in a few years. I was looking forward to surprising the kids, who had no idea.

We were eating lunch when Dad drove up in the parking lot to meet us. The trip was also a good "excuse" for Dad to get out and drive his motorcycle around for a while. Xander is completely enamored with motorcycles right now and he saw Dad drive up on his bike right away. Well, he actually saw the bike in the parking lot right away. I don't think he knew it was Dad until he came up to us in the restaurant.

The aquarium was great. We had so much fun checking out all of the undersea life. The girls got to pet a stingray - Xander kept splashing the water in the tank and was wondering why no rays were coming to him. We saw penguins, tons of fish, sharks, huge manta rays, alligators, jellyfish, frogs and turtles. A pretty good variety of wildlife to observe.

Looking out over the Tennessee River from the top of the aquarium

what cute kids Xander loves the turtles Gator sighting
Chillin with the penguins
Trinity pets one of the sharks
What an amazingly interesting leopard ray
Tons of fish
Splashing in the ray pool
Trying to pet the rays

They have a lovely butterfly garden which was lots of fun. The girls fully understood that if you moved pretty slowly and were gentle, that you could "pet" a butterfly. Xander (wanting to do everything the girls do) thought he wanted to pet a butterfly. Really, he just wanted to look at it and think about petting it. He would move his finger close to one and then suddenly pull it away. If the butterfly decided to fly away, it would freak him out, leading to a few screams and one very fearful sobbing episode. Yes, my son is afraid of flying butterflies.

No, she's not tired at all. Why would you think that?

Following our travels through the aquarium, we headed outside and let the kids play around in the concrete creek. We thought it would be one more way to help the kids get some energy out and cool off a bit. They had a blast!!! Mental note for myself - the next trip to the aquarium, we need to bring swimsuits, towels and a change of clothes. What a great detour!!

A Fun Day

Friday was the last day of swim lessons. Their teachers have been great and the girls have really improved in such a short 2 weeks. Both of them did well in their classes, but still need to do a little bit more work to pass. However, it's our typical routine to do each class twice. However our schedule is such that we'll be waiting a couple of weeks before beginning round two.

Kalyn & her teacher, Miss Kelsey

Kalyn and Trinity with Mr. Spencer - he helped out in both classes (and Kalyn's holding the candy that Spencer had just given her)

Trinity and Miss Grace

Following the lessons, I told the kids that I would take them to a treat. I had read earlier in the week that Friday was National Donut Day and I was NOT going to let this wonderful holiday be passed over without its due celebration. I had also seen that Krispy Kreme was giving away free donuts!!! (Dunkin Donuts was also giving away free donuts in honor of the day, but you had to buy a drink.) So, we drove over to the nearest Krispy Kreme and devoured, um I mean enjoyed, our free donuts. They were delicious. Trinity chose the traditional glazed donut while Kalyn and Xander selected the chocolate glazed covered in sprinkles. They were so yummy!!!

We then headed to the public library. Trinity needed some good chapter books and the library is the perfect place to find them. She picked out some great books and was so excited to get her own personal library card.

That night, we ended the day with a relaxing trip to the pool. Unfortunately the water was quite cold, but it was good to watch Trinity continue to practice what she learned in her lessons. It was a wonderful day to finish out the week!!

Illness Hits the Baughn Home

Last week, Craig was in bed for two days - a fever and generally feeling horribly. He broke out in a small rash on Saturday, but no other big symptoms. He was back up for work on Thursday and we didn't think too much more about it except that it was simply taking him a while to fully recover from this little flu bug.

Monday, Xander woke up with a slight pink coloration on his cheeks. As the week progressed, it got brighter and redder and spread to the back of his shoulders, down his arms and down his legs. Normally I don't get too concerned, but watching it get worse and worse was hard. Not only did each day bring more rash and a brighter red, the rash also stayed longer - the first day or so it would be bright for a bit, then seems to fade away a little. I didn't want to give him anything - he didn't have a fever, he wasn't lethargic and was acting fine otherwise.

Last night, Craig took him over to our good friend, John's house. John's a PA and is a wonderful resource to say, "Hey John - is this a big deal?" John took one short look at him and diagnosed it - Fifth Disease. Some odd things about Fifth Disease is that you can be contagious for up to 2 weeks before the rash occurs with little to no other symptoms. It's also called "Slapped Cheek" since it looks as though someone slapped the infected one across the cheeks. Once a child has Fifths, they can't get it again - kind of like chicken pox. Finally it can be passed to adults, which we now have decided that Craig has it. The symptoms on the CDC site match up almost perfectly with Craig's.

Apparently something is going around. We've heard of another child in his class that has Fifth and another child has Roseolla, which is also called Sixth Disease. Our poor spotted kids. Now it's just time to watch the other two kids.

Tuesday's Happenings

We had seen signs around our neighborhood that the city would be doing construction and turning the water off from 9-4 on Tuesday. So, I was trying to try and be out of the house as much as possible until nap time. Home without water is not somewhere I wanted to be. The day kicked off a second week of swim lessons. It's the last week, but we were excited about showing Trinity's newly-found swimming skills to Miss Grace. I am just continually impressed with how much she keeps trying to improve each session. Kalyn is just simply jumping in with both feet - literally. I've watched her teachers pull her back on the side of the pool, out of the water and bring her away from the steps back to the class. Kalyn just loves the water. While Trinity is trying to slink her way back to the line to jump of the diving board while Kalyn is pushing her way to be first.

Following swim lessons, we picked up some lunch and headed to a nearby park. It was a bit hot, but we had a great time with our picnic lunch and playing on the playground. There was nobody else, so we had the two play sections completely to ourselves. We love this park because it is sightly hidden and off the beaten path. When we're by ourselves, it's like our own private park.

Tuesday night, I had the privilege and honor to take dinner to the family who lost their son a few weeks ago. Even though I don't know they family very well (nothing more than a simple "hello" in the preschool hall), I was looking forward to sharing with this family during this difficult time. I cannot even begin the pain and hurt they are going through. I was glad that I could tell Rhonda how sorry I am for them and that I'm praying for her and their family. I knew I did not have any special words, but I did was to give her some verbal support. It was a hard dinner to take - I usually take dinner for people who's wives are on mission trips or to celebrate a birth. But I was so glad that I did.