So, we went to South Carolina last week. That makes 25 states that we've BOTH been to. We still have to revisit any states that one or the other hasn't been to. On the way there I had to entertain Madeline by drawing her favorite story-The Sorcerer's Apprentice. She was interested but confused to see the characters drawn out on paper. She played with it for a good long time. We stayed in a little hotel/condo for a week and only paid $180 for the week-super cheap for a great room.

The first day was warmish (upper 60s) so we went to the beach and were the only crazies in the outdoor pool and lazy river. It was chilly for sure, but we had fun. The next few days got colder and we went to a children's museum, some local restaurants (Myrtle Beach is fine for seafood, not so great for BBQ), swam in the indoor pool every day, went to Georgetown SC, and went to a really beautiful botanical garden that was FULL of sculpture by Americans. The garden was so cool that we went there 2 days. At an activity called "meet the animals" we met a de-stinked skunk, some snakes, a couple of turtles, and a toad. It was pretty neat, and Madeline talked about it a lot afterwards. The next day we visited the zoo at the garden. It only has animals native to the area. We saw hawks, eagles, owls of different kinds, otters (which were really interactive!), foxes (which, we learned from the zookeeper, smell like skunks when they, um, use the restroom), geese, wild turkeys, swans, bulls, chickens, horses, pigs, sheep, and gray squirrels. It was a fun experience because we actually never see any of these animals at the Nashville zoo, so they seemed really exotic to us!

On the way back we drove through the mountains in North Carolina. We stopped at a hole-in-the-wall Appalachian-style BBQ restaurant. The door said "Bikers Welcome" and the inside was decorated with puzzles on the walls and hundreds of pig stuffed animals and figurines. We wanted something authentic, and this place was perfect. The food was super smokey and they had a really interesting BBQ sauce - very runny with more vinegar and spice and less sugar and tomato. We also had fried green tomatoes and hush puppies. We feel like by now we've pretty much tried all of the southern foods that we wanted to try before we leave the south. Smoked ribs (Memphis style) are the best of all.

Right before entering the Smoky Mountain National Park, we drove through a Cherokee Indian Reservation. While we were passing by a casino we noticed Old Mormon Church Road. Crazy, huh? We had to take a picture of the road sign with Cherokee writing.

Now we're back in Nashville for 10 more weeks. It was a nice last spring break-that seems so weird to say!

ReddddddddddAH Light!!!

We just got back from our South Carolina trip and I'm not ready to sit down and put everything on here quite yet. Raymey and I just saw Sting on PBS and I remembered that I MUST post this first! We had a great little hotel/condo thing that the owner rented to us for $180 for the week! It was great. Anyways, there was a red heat lamp in the bathroom and when I first turned it on it reminded me of "Roxanne" and I started singing "You don't have to put on the red light!" and Madeline totally picked it up. Several times this week she requested the "red light" be turned on and she'd sing "reeeeedAH liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight, redddddddddddAH liiiiiiiight." It was the best of fun! We love this funny little girl!

Madeline counts to infinity....

Do you want to see how? Watch the video. She's our greatest entertainment!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Someone kindly pointed out that I accidentally put 2008. My bad! I'd have to go to a bunch of trouble to fix it, so just pretend it says 2009!

NotMyNewComputer!!!

MadelinePulledOffTheSpaceBarAndSeveralKeysOffOfRaymey'sLaptop.WhyWhyWhy?ThisIsSupposedToBeMyComputerInACoupleOfMonths!!! We put the keys back on but the space bar is off balance and only works 20% of the time so I'm doing a lot of deleting. Why couldn't it have been F3 or the number lock key? As if it wasn't already hard for me to get on the computer and blog and email, now I have to type 15 words a minute. We need to fiddle with the keyboard and see if we can fix it a little better.
Madeline is a good girl, just really curious. She did this right before an Enrichment meeting at church on Thursday. We told her "Madeline DON'T touch Daddy's computer" over and over so she'd understand what she'd done. We were pretty worried about it because we weren't sure if we'd be able to fix it, so I'm sure she didn't like how she felt. She never cried about it, but the whole way to church she said "Mannin [Madeline] sad. Mannin sad." I think she was looking for sympathy, but we didn't have any to give! (this tiny paragraph took 16 minutes to type! ARRRGG!)

Funny Boots

Madeline is in love with her new rain boots. A girl in one of her books has the exact same boots, so when I saw them in Target I really wanted to get them for her. Now she can't go without them . We dropped her off at our friends' house last week and when they put her down for a nap, she refused to take her precious new boots off. I guess they are pretty stylin'.

Meeska Mooska Mickey MOUSE!

I just wrote my brother (in Argentina) and Raymey's sister (in Peru) and realized I needed to write on the blog about our new-found favorite song.
Madeline's new favorite thing in the world is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. It is really funny because I don't really have an attachment to Disney or anything. Her introduction to the mouse was in Fantasia where Mickey is the sorcerer's apprentice. Then one day flipping channels we saw the Mickey Mouse show and she went nuts!! So, every morning at 8am (if I'm not working out yet) she has to watch the Mickey Mouse show and dance the Hot Dog dance at the end (she actually says "hawk-cog" for the first 23 minutes of the show until they finally show the 60 second song and dance at the end). I've had the Hot Dog song stuck in my head for the last week, but somehow it is a catchy enough tune that I like it.
Here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wePMYM4av6Q
I'm such a mom now. I think some of your senses must dull (hopefully just temporarily) so that you can retain your sanity. Any moms agree?

Just another week

Raymey had a short course this week. He had 4 hours of the class on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and even today. Thank goodness he is done! Madeline and I went to the zoo again yesterday with some friends. We had a great time and wore each other out. The weather was perfect and it was SO NICE to be outside. We rode home with Tammy and Eli (our good buddies here) and Madeline and Eli looked so cute I had to snap a picture. The poor kids were pretty tired after our 4.5 hours at the zoo!
Earlier this week I found some old baloons and a little pump that I used to use to entertain kids when I was babysitting. It was a great find! Madeline LOVED playing with her baloon hat (I need to learn how to make some real things!) The last pic is of Madeline and me (I should use "me" in that case--right?) in our matching wraps. Madeline's favorite thing is to have her blanket wrapped around her in this manner. It is interesting. I'm tired, so no more writing, but here are some pics for our family and friends far away!