New Orleans, LA

We were childless for christmas and Erin had the week off so we went on holiday. New Orleans was closeish so we drove down and had a nice weekend.

We stayed at the Hotel St. Marie in the french quarter. It was mostly nice but we don't think we'd stay there again.

We went on a swamp tour thing. It was really cool. Being winter time all of the foliage was dead which both meant that things looked dead but also that you could see deeper into the swamp thing than you could during say the summertime when it was super dense with leaves and such.

It wasn't completely devoid of color though. A few flowers popped up here and there.

It wasn't completely devoid of wildlife either. A boar can be seen in the distance surrounded by a poorly drawn circle.

A lot of the fishing shacks were pretty trashed. I hear they have some sort of hurricane problem around there. I'll have to look it up later.

We went back to the museum of art and looked at the statue of eros and psyche again. We quite liked it. It was also in this room at this time that I asked Erin to marry me. It's some room, huh?

We went on an expensive and short carriage ride. They are touristy and semi-romantic. Mostly because it's 20F outside and so you cuddle up beneath a blanket. This mule of some unremembered name carted us around. Erin probably remembers his name. I'm not so hot at that stuff.

We felt the day needed to be marked with a picture of us. We took this self portrait in our hotel room. I need to work on my camera skills.

The next day we were supposed to ride a trolley I mean streetcar but I have social anxiety issues and screwed that up. Instead we rode a Pontiac Vibe.

Said trolley I mean streetcar ride was supposed to take us to a garden district tour. I think I enjoyed the garden district the most out of all the districts and quarters and such. There were a lot of nice and old houses and a lot of greenery.

Some of them were even for sale. Who wants to lend me the couple mil for this one?

We had a really good time there and will likely try to revisit it some time in the future. It was a cool place to see and a great place to ask the love of my life to marry me.

Christmas

Christmas came a little early for Jack this year. His father had him this year for christmas so we just did things early. They're all made up holidays anyway, right?

It's like a magic sock thing that has candy and toys in it and it has your name on it. What's not to like?


After clothes were retrieved from their box they were briefly examined to make sure they didn't accidentally include any toys or something fun and were then promptly thrown to mommy. That sounds just about how it's supposed to go.

Books, while enjoyed on other days also get passed quickly to mommy when there are more presents to open. More presents that most likely will contain toys.

His school told us one day that we should get him some scissors. He really likes them. Actually, he really really really likes them. When he first asked it sounded quite like "I want a sister" instead of "I want a scissors." We told him that he'd have to wait for a little bit as those things take time. He didn't understand.
We have a lot of scrap paper around that he gets to cut whenever he wants. The tree got cut a few times when we first brought it home but after a few reminders that we only cut paper it lived the rest of it's life unscathed. Christmas was a great time to pull them out again and get the pesky ribbons off of the presents that surely contained toys.

He likes plugging things into the wall, especially things that light up. Another picture in this set is blurrier and darker and he looks quite devious. Good thing this one got put on here instead, huh?

The astute viewer will notice that presents progressively appear under the tree as the pictures go along. That's because this site likes to display pictures backwards and the editing area is so small that it's a large pain to try to reorganize them. That means you get to look at them backwards. Enjoy.

lexington, ky

The weekend before thanksgiving we met up with Laura and her family to finish Erin's introductions of my immediate family as well as to give the kids a chance to meet each other. We had a pretty fun time.

There was a cool apple orchard in Georgetown, KY that had a great play area for kids. Jack is standing on top of the hay maze thing. They surprisingly enough also had very good apples. The suncrisp we got were quite tasty and went into a quite tasty apple pie. Publix recently started stocking honeycrisp apples which aside from being twice the size of my fist are also pretty tasty. Probably not as good as the suncrisp we got in Kentucky though.

This is maybe at the orchard too. It's probably at the orchard. Let's just say it was at the orchard and be confidant and be done with it, ok?

Agnes was quite into being held. She didn't much care who was doing it as long as she didn't have to walk. It worked out fairly well toward the end since she wanted to sit in her stroller and Jackson wanted to push her stroller.

Fun times were had at the hotel pool.

We went to what we thought was going to be a tour of a chocolate factory but the tour was only for weekdays and thus didn't much care for us showing up on Saturday. The kids had fun playing with all the candy (and tasting some too) in the shop, however.

On the way home Erin and I were asked constantly where Agless (we really tried to get him to say it correctly, Laura. Sorry) was going and when we were going to go visit her in Ohio. About halfway home we mentioned to Jack that we had to go home because the cats needed to be fed or else they'd die. We didn't anticipate the next 10 minutes of frantic shouting: "Hurry, Danny! Drive faster!! The kitties are dying!!"

Boating on Barack Obama

I guess when you're 3 years old, some things get lost in translation.

We thought that it would be a good education experience and a nice memory for Jackson if he went with us to go vote today. So, we bundled him up and left the house early today to go stand in line at the church that was our designated polling location.

Pretty soon it became apparent that Jackson thought we were going on a boat and that the boat was called Barack Obama (or maybe Bob Barr). Disappointment ensued when he realized there was no boat in sight and that the excitement peaked when he got a piece of candy from a poll worker.

So, I think we'll be trying to locate a boat ride of some sort this weekend.

In other news, we went early this morning (~30 minutes before the polls opened) and there were already maybe 50 people standing in line. I passed another couple polling places on the way to work and they were pretty packed. I know Tennessee is pretty firmly in the McCain column but everyone I work with seems to be voting Obama.

Fall Hiking

This weekend was our first weekend with Jack in awhile—between my birthday and Jack being gone for most of two weekends, it's been awhile since we did any munchkin-related activities.

On Saturday, we went to Ruby Falls, which is arguably Jackson's favorite place on the planet. He loves loves loves to go there and see the waterfall. The guides have a script they use when they take the group through the cave, and tidbits from their spiel are starting to show up in Jackson's yammering. Most notably, "don't drink the water."

On Sunday, we got lost for awhile and then made our way to Pocket Wilderness. It's just a wooded area that has some hiking trails. We don't really know how long/far we walked, but it was long enough to exhaust Jack.


On our way back towards the car, he was pretty insistent on being carried.


It was really pretty—fall colors were in pretty full force on the trees. And there was a stream running parallel to the walking trail.

Halloween

This year, Jackson was Thomas the Train. He was pretty proud of it, and we tried to get him to say "Allllllll aboard! Trick or treat!" but he wasn't really buying into that. Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Donna came to dinner and we all had a really nice evening.


Jackson had a great Halloween (I think). We....

- made a Halloween gingerbread house,

- carved a pumpkin and roasted pumpkin seeds

- baked and decorated cookies, and

- went trick-or-treating around the complex using the questionably effective elbow-door-knocking technique


He did great going door-to-door... In previous years I think he was a) too tired, and b) too shy to do much, but Jack was noticeably more into it this year.

Count of children who knocked on our door: 2 (including Jack)

He's also turned into quite the little candy fiend. He'd never really been into cookies and candy, but I think he ate his way to a stomachache on Friday night.

I don't care

Since Jackson has been back home over the last couple days, his favorite phrase is "I don't care," which he usually says with a huge grin on his face. He seems to really know what he's saying, too—which may be the bad part.

Jackson: Where's our pumpkin?
Mommy: It's in Danny's car.
Jackson (grinning): I don't care.
Mommy (laughing): Oh? You don't care about what?
Jackson: I don't care about the pumpkin.

Danny carved the aforementioned pumpkin last night and we sort of roasted some pumpkin seeds. We have a few other Halloween projects planned for this week, so we'll take some pictures and post them.

Oh, and I'm also "mom" now.

happy birthday, dear

No real pictures for this one: my apologies.

Friday was Erin's birthday. We started the day with a picnic at Coolidge Park. Subs, crackers, a cheese spread thing, spinach and artichoke dip, egg salad, small pita bread things. It was quite enjoyable. Dinner at her parents' house with cake was quite enjoyable.

Saturday we drove down to Atlanta and after traversing the seventy-one Peachtree (st/ln/dr/blvd/ave) (ne/nw/sw/se) absurd combinations we made our way to the Fox Theatre to watch Wicked. She had a really good time. I thought Act I left something to be desired but Act II was much better and quite enjoyable. Dinner at a nearby Morroccan restaurant was quite enjoyable.

Happy birthday, my love.

rock city

We've been going to Rock City since we moved over here. It's a good place for him to run around and get tired. For someone into that kind of thing, it's fairly nice views and lots of rocks and trees and stuff that people generally like. We just go for the paths for him to run about. We're quite cultured and appreciative of nature like that.







There is the unfortunate addition of scary doll things all over the place. In one of the big caves there are a ton of black light glowing ones that are quite upsetting. They are apparently supposed to be cute and nice or something but they've always kind of bothered us. Also, the first few times we went there a certain scene with a guy and a sheep looked a little different than it looks these days. First is how it looks now and following is a digital reconstruction of what it used to look like.

hamilton county county fair

we went to the hamilton county county fair (redundancy theirs, not ours) on saturday. it looked like a county fair. at least it looked like a county fair when your average county-mate listens to country music and owns livestock.

we took a bus to the park which was enjoyed quite a lot by crazy nose.


after that we touched some goats and a donkey. the goats were the popular ear-less variety.


next up came some fair food. it tasted like fair food. there were a bunch of kid related things around to suck up money so we took part in a few. the last and best of which was the monster really tall slide thing. the video will need to be watched a few times. you're allowed to laugh.





this was actually his second time on the slide. the first attempt looked nearly identical to the second. he had no issue with crashing on his face and wanted to go again.

he got a parrot balloon and then got to go on his favorite ride again.

5am rocks

I, Jackson Patrick Wallace, love to wake up at 5:00 am. All those mornings waking up at 6:00 am just don't cut it anymore. 5:00 am is where it's at.