Daddy-Daughter Weekend

This past weekend, Stephanie and Joshua took a trip up to Tennessee to see her mom, Elijah went to spend part of the weekend with my parents to go to the Riverside Military Parade, and Aubrey and I spent a few days--just the two of us. It was fabulous. She was a delight.

We started our Friday morning with some cereal and one of Stephanie's Apple muffins, then went into Aubrey's room to play blocks. She loved building tall towers, and then knocking them down. And I had great joy in watching her and helping to build. On one tower, I added a toper... I guess to humor myself.

I did vacuum the house, as she lay upon the couch, then we ate lunch. Apparently carrots are good dipped in milk. We then built a tent in the living room and setup camp. Then we played a bit outside, came inside to read some stories. Then ate dinner and watched a movie in our tent.

The next morning we woke up a bit earlier, and left the house around 9. We first went to Bear Hollow Zoo in Athens. She seemed to enjoy seeing all the animals, continually exclaiming, "I see mow ayimahs." The turkeys she found especially humorous, because "dey fat."

After the zoo, we walked around Memorial Park and had some fun on the playground. Then we went out to eat at the ever staple Chickfila, where she ate her fruit and drank her chocolate milk, and I ended up eating all her snubbed chicken nuggets (hey, great deal for me). Afterwards, she asked to play on the playground there. Of course, I complied, finding a seat inside the play area to watch her. At one point, she was playing around the toddler area, pushing the buttons on the zoo wall. There, a most creepy woman's voice comments and asks rhetorical questions like, "What color am I?" Is she suppose to answer that, or is this like watching Dora where we just wait out the awkward silence for her to give us the answer? However, when I heard the voice say, "Obey your mother and father," I couldn't help but respond out loud, "Push that button again." A nearby mother laughed and offered, "They should put that on continual replay."

It's also interesting how different our kids are. Whereas Elijah likes to play rough, and will wrestle with a stranger if they let him, Aubrey expressed great disapproval when a strange boy "puh my shuht (pull my shirt)." And whereas Elijah always loves being with people and is happiest when people want to play with him (something he also wrote as school), Aubrey wanted to "pay by myshelf."

Anyway, after we finished eating, my friend Dave gave me a call and invited us to join him and the family at Sandy Creek Nature Center. So we did, taking another walk around the woods, and then visiting their Nature Center which exhibited turtles and fish in their tanks, an active bee hive that you can observe the inside through glass, along with educational propaganda to encourage energy conservation and recycling (I'm all for that stuff too, I just think its funny).

Then we made our trek back home to let the dogs out and finally go over to pick up Elijah.