Praying

Before meals, when Bruce leads the prayer, the first few lines he says are always the same. "Lord, thank you for this day. Thank you for this food, and let it nourish our bodies."

Spencer has picked up on this and now he says it as his intro to bedtime prayers. We tell him constantly after he says it that we aren't eating at that time.

Last night, Bruce beat him to the punch. Before it was Spencer's turn, Bruce said, "Spencer, just so you remember, we aren't eating right now. So you don't have to thank God for the food, because there isn't any right now."

Spencer gravely nodded his understanding, and when it was his turn to pray, he began, "God, thank you for this day and for all the food we had."

He understood there was no food at that moment, but Spencer still thanked God for what we'd already eaten that day. It struck us as funny, and Bruce and I chuckled softly. But Clay and Allison heard, and they picked up on the laughter as well.

That really bothered Spencer. His feelings got hurt because he felt we were laughing at him, so Bruce explained, "Spencer, you didn't say anything wrong. We're just laughing because we thought it was cute."

Allison had her turn praying with no problems. Then it was Clay's turn. He was working his way down his mental list of prayers... for a friend who fell on the playground to feel better, "thanks" for this and "please" that.

Then Spencer started laughing. I nudged him, and Bruce gave him a stern look (which Spencer wouldn't have seen if his eyes had been appropriately shut!).

And Spencer calmly replied, "I wasn't laughing at what he said. I just thought it was cute."

Copperheads, Dolly and Bears... Oh My!

Over the weekend, we took our new ("new" to us anyway) camper on its maiden voyage. We went with Dave, who works with Bruce, and his wife Marissa and their kids Lance, Michaela and William. We stayed at Outdoor Resorts campground near Cosby.

When we first got to the campground on Friday, a young boy greeted us by bringing for our inspection a dead copperhead hanging from a stick. While I was not impressed, all three of our kids were... Clay a little less than Spencer and Allison. They followed that little boy around for about a half hour before the lifeless snake was flung to its final resting place in the creek that ran alongside the area.

We had a great first night, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows. Then the kids played on the playground right next to our campers, in the dark, while we two moms walked around the entire campground about three times. I think Bruce was eager for us to get back in time to get the kids in bed. Clay cried that night because he missed home and wanted to leave.

We woke up bright and early at 5:45 a.m. on Saturday, hoping to beat the crowd of cars to Cades Cove in Townsend. We biked the entire 11-mile loop.



It was a beautiful morning. At one point, we saw lots of people up in the woods, and the word "bear" was heard. Our bikes were quickly put aside, and only Allison needed any coaxing to roam in the woods for a close-up of the bear. It was a baby cub... once she heard that, it was all "Awww".

When we got to the grist mill area, we stopped for potty breaks and snacks. Apple butter demonstrations were going on that day, so we sampled some and bought a jar once all three kids pronounced it "yummy". Then we roamed the other buildings on site before we headed back out.



We grilled supper that night and had s'mores for dessert. Too many s'more!! We headed to bed a bit earlier that night because it had been a long day. Sunday morning after closing up the camper and unhooking everything, we headed for Dollywood.



We had such a great time! Lance is 9, but both Clay and Spencer enjoyed spending time with him. Allison even asked him to sit beside her for lunch, which was sweet, but Lance drew the line when Allison tried to hold his hand. On the flip side, Michaela, who is 6, and Allison were holding hands constantly. William is 4, and he kept talking about his new good friend, Allison. And Spencer played with him a lot, too. They all got along like they've known each other for years.

Clay tried the Timber Tower for the first time. He said "no" at first, but once he was on there, he was hooked. He even rode once by himself. The picture below was his second time riding, with Bruce this go 'round. They're kind of in the middle.



Turns out the other kids love the Shooting Star as much as ours do. And Bruce was comandeered to ride along.



To top it all off, we had ice cream toward the end of our visit. Of course, our three turned their ice cream into milkshakes. It's just more fun to eat with a straw than a spoon.



And next week, we'll camp again, but closer to home. We'll post more then.

Gray Fossil Site Fieldtrip

The whole second grade at Clay's school took a field trip to the Gray Fossil Site this past Monday. I thought it was so neat... interesting and well organized, with a great guide to tell all about the site. It was even so well thought out that they had shoe scrubbers at the back entrance of the museum so people could scrub their shoes after being at the outside portion.

These pictures aren't great. They were taken with my cell phone because I forgot to take the camera.

Clay pans for fossils through some rocks taken from the pit where the original rhinoceros bones were discovered during excavation for a new highway. Highway plans were scrapped once scientists realized the area was a mecca of fossils.

The lady in the back left is Clay's teacher, Mrs. Smith. She's a wonderful teacher, and a Christian to boot! The little dark haired girl second from the left with the white long-sleeved shirt under the blue class t-shirt... that's Skyler, who calls Clay fairly frequently. I mentioned her in a previous post as being one of Clay's crushes. Not that they remotely acknowledged each other on the field trip. Leah, the little girl in pink, goes to our church. She and Clay were in class together last year, as was Whitney, the little girl on the right.

Samantha and Clay listening to some facts about the lab that they were about to enter. Samantha is Clay's other little "girlfriend". I'm told they chase each other on the play ground. Clay says when they catch each other, they just switch who was the chaser and who was the chasee.

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After the field trip, all four classes of second graders ate lunch at McDonald's, while we parents scurried around like rats in a maze getting ketchup, drinks, chicken nuggets, burgers and fries to the appropriate kids. The boy in the middle is Colin and the one on the right is Caleb. They aren't in Clay's class this year, but they were last year. They came for Clay's sleepover on his birthday.

And here's Clay with his buddy Nathan that he was partnered with throughout the fieldtrip. Bruce and I have heard a lot about Nathan since school started, and I've been trying to work out a play date with Nathan's mom, but that hasn't happened yet. When Clay introduced me to Nathan, he simply said, "Nice to meet you," and then he was pretty quiet. I talked to Bruce on the cell phone a bit into the field trip and told him that I'd met Nathan and he seemed like a good kid, but that Clay was obviously the talker in the friendship. Boy did I eat my words! By the time the kids ate lunch, I spent more time listening to Nathan than I heard from Clay. And when they loaded onto the bus to head back to school, Nathan waved goodbye to me far more than Clay did.

I was shocked to hear Clay say later that day that it was the worst field trip he'd ever been on. I thought, "How can this be? This is right up his alley, and he even got partnered with his new buddy Nathan." More talking revealed that he was upset because there was so much to do, but so many kids there that he didn't get to spend enough time on the things that interested him. Needless to say, we'll be going back as a family some time soon.

Little Flirt

Last night, Bruce and I were supposed to have a date night to celebrate my birthday. I had a girl in our youth group lined up to babysit for Spencer and Allison, and Clay was going to play with the son of a friend of mine. We had reservations at Guiseppe's, a great Italian restaurant that we haven't eaten at since Bryan and Alondra's wedding rehearsal dinner.

After an afternoon of soccer games with the kids (Clay and Allison both scored their first goals this year!), we got home and I called both our babysitter and my friend to check on times and ended up leaving messages. We waited and waited to hear back from either of them, most importantly the babysitter. By 5 p.m., the designated time, we hadn't heard back from either of them. So, we packed the kids up and headed to O'Charley's for dinner. The meal was great, and the kids were sweet.

And then the flirting began. Shortly after our waitress left our table about halfway through our meal, Spencer watched her across the room and said, "I like her hair." A minute later, he said, "Her earrings are pretty."

A bit more conversation led to Clay spilling the beans about two girls in his class that he has crushes on. One was no surprise at all... she's called our house about four times now. Their conversations are hilarious. And short -- per mommy!!

Our waitress came back and I said, "Spencer, tell her what you said about her hair." He laid all his cards on the table and told her he liked her hair and her earrings. He was grinning from ear to ear, and Bruce and I were cracking up. Bruce said, "I think he has a crush on you." And Allison giggled and said, "He loves you." The waitress was silly back with Spencer and said, "Aw, do you want to marry me?" Without missing a beat, Spencer said, "Not now. But when I'm older." She asked him to look her up in a few years, and he said, "Maybe when I'm 60."

I'm feeling really good about him right now. My youngest son will still be living at home when he's 60, because in his mind, that's the age to marry. (Hey, I'll be 92 then. I'm seeing huge future savings on nursing home costs.)

Spencer's charm must have worked some kind of magic... she brought them all free chocolate sundaes. At that point Spencer said, "Let's come back here again tomorrow."

Dollywood

We took the kids to Dollywood last Sunday. Here's just a few pictures we made. It's taken me this long to blog this because I am basically blog illiterate and I have to wait for Bruce to explain everything to me... sometimes several times... and when that doesn't work, he tells me again, but then I take notes. And often times I still end up calling and venting on him because I still don't get it. There's been a lot of that this week, but Bruce just held my hand through this, so I should be fine for a minute.

First, Allison took a ride in the pink car on Rockin' Roadway. She had her Dollywood map, in case she needed directions.

Bruce caught this one of the boys while on the Scrambler.

I am not a fan of the ferris wheel. Going around and up high is not the problem, it's the crazy rocking in the individual seats that's just yucky. Spencer and Allison were much nicer to me on this ride this go 'round than Bruce was the last time I went on a ferris wheel when Clay was a baby. The only time they moved much was to get Bruce and Clay's attention in the seat behind us. As you can see, my hands were clutching the bar, very tightly, the whole time.

We all rode on the Shooting Star. This was a crowd favorite!

And we loved the swings, too.