Our 4 Year Wedding Anniversary

On Thursday, June 16th, John and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary!  This year we decided to go to Chattanooga to celebrate, and the best part...we took Dawson with us!  :)

On Thursday we visited the Tennessee Aquarium, and had a blast.  We spent hours looking at fish, river otters, snakes, lizards, penguins, sting rays, and Dawson's favorite...TURTLES!  John and I liked the penguin exhibit (which was new since the last time we went in 2006) the best, but Dawson loved any tank or exhibit that had a turtle.  The aquarium was perfect for Dawson because almost all of the tanks were at his level so he could easily see all the animals and fish.  We got to touch a gecko lizard, sturgeons (big fish!), and sting rays.  Dawson said the sturgeons were "ewie" and "slimy!"  Silly boy.   We had such a fun time at the aquarium.  John and I agreed that it was much more fun this time taking Dawson than when we went in 2006 because Dawson was so excited about every animal and had so much fun!

After spending the entire day (minus a nap at our hotel between touring the River building and the Ocean building), we played in the fun water features outside the aquarium.  Then we went out to eat our anniversary dinner.  Although Dawson does not normally have the attention span for sit-down restaurants anymore, his anniversary gift to us was being well-behaved at dinner.  After dinner we spent time walking around downtown which was surprisingly busy due to the fact that the Riverbend Music Festival was going on.  It was nice to walk around downtown with music in the background.

We spent Thursday night in Chattanooga, and Dawson even slept in a queen size bed in our hotel all by himself.  We made him a "nest" of pillows and blankets so he wouldn't fall out.  Now every time he goes to bed at home, he asks us to make a nest for him!

After getting a good night's rest, on Friday morning we headed to the Children's Museum which was right next to our hotel.  This children's museum was AWESOME!  We spent the entire morning there, and probably could have stayed longer if Dawson had not gotten hungry for lunch.  They had a three story high climbing area with slides, an eagle's nest, and all other kinds of cool tunnels and features.  This was one of Dawson's favorite things there.  Another favorite was the big bubble area they had on the roof top.  Dawson had fun blowing bubbles bigger than his head and popping them.  The temporary exhibit that is open now at the museum is a Bob the Builder theme, and Dawson LOVED it.  They had dump trucks, scoopers, diggers, cement mixers, and more all made like Bob's.  Dawson now likes to talk about "Bob Bob."  There were so many fun things at the children's museum that it would be impossible to talk about each one, but Dawson had a blast!  We will try to go back in the future for sure!

After leaving the museum and getting lunch, we walked across the Tennessee River on the Walnut Street Pedestrian Bridge which is one of the longest pedestrian bridges in the world!  The bridge is about a half a mile long.  It was nice and breezy, and Dawson enjoyed relaxing in his stroller looking at birds on the bridge and dogs being walked.  He was worn out from the morning's activities, so he was happy to stroll!  We walked by the waterfront a little longer enjoying our time in Chattanooga, and then loaded up to head back home.

We had a fun time in Chattanooga.  This was a wonderful trip because we got to celebrate our anniversary by traveling without having to leave Dawson!!

Our 4th anniversary was a great one.  Now enjoy a few of the pictures from our trip...

Dawson outside of the aquarium

in Chattanooga.

This was a really long tank,

and Dawson was chasing a turtle

back and forth!  He was so excited.

Telling the turtle, "Come back,

come back here, turtle!"

Checking out the fish and sting

rays in this tank.

John asked him what he thought

about the water, and he said "cold

water!" and kept shurgging his shoulders

when he would look at the fish.

Dawson had to read all the information

about the fish too of course.

Dawson looked at this tihng and

said, "be nice!"  I agree, it did

look kind of mean.  :)

Although John and I liked the penguin

exhibit the best, Dawson liked the

penguin statues outside of the exhibit

the best.  He kept hugging them.

And then one got a kiss!

Dawson and Daddy in the big crab tank.

Look at those huge crabs!

Dawson said they looked scary and gross!

Checking out the sharks.

Taking some time to play in the

water features outside of the aquarium.

Dawson has a wonderful sense of direction,

and any time we were remotely close

to the water when we were walking

downtown he would ask to play in the

water more.

Dawson absolutely loved the huge

slide at the children's museum.

Exploring the children's museum.

Another favorite was the huge

play kitchen area at the children's

museum.  Dawson made pancakes

and cupcakes, he told us.  He was so

funny in the kitchen.  He loved it so much

and was going from one thing to the next

using collinders, spatulas, whisks, and all

the kitchen gadgets.  He helps me a lot

in the kitchen now, but I think he will

continue to enjoy this.

More cooking.

Using the microwave.

Dawson in the kitchen.

Dawson and Daddy climbing

up the BIG tower at the children's

museum to look out the windows.

Having fun in the "Bob Bob" exhibit.

Daddy and Dawson playing on the

rooftop.

In the doctor's office area of the

children's museum.

Dawson got a balloon animal as

we were leaving.

Daddy and Dawson after a fun

morning at the children's museum.

Mommy and Dawson after a fun morning at

the children's museum.

Daddy and Dawson strolling

on the Walnut Street Pedestrian

Bridge.

One more, but not so excited about

taking yet another picture!

Haha!

The Not-So-Childproof Doorknobs

The most exciting thing about this post is that I now know how to upload a video!!  It's only taken me two years of having having our video camera to finally get around to figuring it out!  So there should be many more videos to come your way!  :)

Now, on to the actual post...So you may remember back in January when I posted about how we had to resort to putting the big plastic childproof doorknobs on several doors in the house for Dawson.  Never did I imagine that only a few months later he would be able to open them, but, of course, he has figured it out.  Here is a video of how fast he can open the one in his room.

The bad news is that now Dawson can open all of the doors we didn't want him to be able to open like the door to the garage, the door out of his room, etc.  BUT there is good news...I uploaded the video to facebook, and the company who makes the product contacted me.  Within 5 days we are supposed to have a different kind of Safety 1st brand childproof door item to try.  It is still disappointing that now we have childproof doorknobs that my child can open faster than me (seriously!), but we're going to give the new one a try as soon as it gets here!

This wasn't a very exciting post, so I promise the next one will have more pictures...or maybe even a video of Dawson talking (now that I know how to upload the videos!).

It's Begining to Look A Lot Like Summer...

 Although it's not summer yet, it's beginning to look like summer since we have attended a wedding, enjoyed squash from our garden, attended a summer kids movie at the Monacco, and made a splash in the pool all this week!  And even if it's not summer yet, it feels like it here in Alabama.  It has been in the upper 90's with high humidity every day...but I wouldn't trade it for cold weather any day!  John, Dawson, and I have spent a great deal of time outside enjoying the sunshine!

On Friday evening we loaded the Jeep and headed up to Maryville, Tennessee (again).  Our reason for going back again so soon was to attend the wedding of my friend, Kristin.  Kristin and I have been friends since we were 2 or 3 years old.  We lived across the street from each other for a few years, attended the same church, took dance classes together for many years, and went to the same elementary and middle schools.  We also both went to UT, and our moms work together.  Needless to say, we have known each other the majority of our lives, so off to Tennessee we went to attend her wedding!

After spending the day visiting with family, Saturday evening we left Dawson with his Grandad, Nana, Aunt Emmie, and Cousin Drew while we attended the wedding.  I think Dawson had a wonderful evening, and John and I had a good time too! 

The wedding was beautiful, and the reception was a lot of fun.  They had a photo booth set up for guests to visit during the reception.  I had never seen this at a reception before, but I think it's a fun idea!  Each guest got a copy of their pictures and got to place a copy in a scrapbook for the bride and groom.  We enjoyed taking a few silly pictures in the photo booth, enjoyed the food and drinks, and did a little dancing.  I wish I had a picture of my brother and I dancing to Teach Me how to Dougie, but I think the only photo of that is on someone's phone.  :)  Logan was better at the Dougie than me, for sure!  Overall, we had a fun evening at the wedding!

Also, while we were in Tennessee John got to play a round of golf at Egwani Farms with his Dad.  Dawson loved being the center of attention while spending time with Lolly, Pop, Logan (he calls him Gogan), Grandad, Nana (he calls her Nainie), Aunt Emmie, Cousin Drew (he calls him Dew), and Mamaw. 

After a fun weekend visiting with family, on Monday afternoon we came back home to Alabama...writing that reminds me that if you ask Dawson where he lives he now answers "bama."  Don't worry though because he still loves reading his Smokey book, says "go vols!," and loves for us to sing Rocky Top! :)

On Wednesday morning John and I took Dawson to his first movie of the summer.  As you may remember last summer we took Dawson to a number of free movies the Monacco Theater at Bridgestreet offers for kids two mornings a week during the summer months.  The theaters is doing this again!  Today's movie was Babe which Dawson loved.  I knew he would because he's so into animals.  Last year we were lucky if we got through 15-20 minutes of each movie before having to leave, but today we got to stay an entire hour!  For the first 30 minutes, Dawson watched intently.  The last 30, he squirmed and walked in front of his seat a little, but he was still watching.  We obviously didn't get to see the whole movie, but Dawson still had fun! 

Then Wednesday evening I decided to take Dawson swimming.  As I have mentioned, the past 3 times we went swimming he was slowly warming up to the water.  This time, though, Dawson showed me what a big boy he was!  He now LOVES the pool.  He would put his face in the water, and he even decided he wanted to jump off the side (with me catching him, of course).  After he realized what fun it was, he probably jumped off the side of the pool 40 times in an hour and a half!   I am so happy that he loves the water now after only a few visits to the pool!!  Now that he enjoys it, it will be a nice way to cool off and have fun while still being outside this summer!

In other news, our garden has been producing veggies!  Yesterday we ate the first of the yellow squash, and it was delicious!  We will have a few more ready to pick by the weekend, and the zucchini are not too far behind.  We can also see little green peppers growing, but they still have a little while, as do the carrots.  I am excited about all of the squash and zucchini it looks like we will have. 

That wraps it up for now.  Enjoy the pictures below...

John and I before the wedding.

One more picture of John and I before the wedding.

Our pictures from the photo booth.

Some of the yummy squash from our

garden.  (The one little squash would have

gotten bigger, but overly helpful little hands

picked it...so we ate it too!)

Zucchini growing, but not ready yet.

The biggest green pepper we have so far.

Most of them are about this size,

and no where near ready.

Not a great picture, but the only one we have

from Dawson's first movie of the summer.

This was taken in the theater after the movie

had started so it was hard to get Dawson's attention.

Dawson learning to jump in the pool!

Jumping!

Making a splash and loving it!

Memorial Day Weekend

This Memorial Day Weekend was the first one that John has not had to work since we've been married, so we made plans and intended to make it an awesome holiday weekend!  On Saturday morning we got up bright and early to head down to Birmingham to visit the zoo with our friends, the Heatons.  They have Jack (2.5 years old) and Gabe (8 months).  With all the kids and carseats we drove down separately, but the guys took advantage of the caravan and used the radios to talk between the cars.  This was possibly the highlight of the trip for John and Eric (only kidding).  When we were less than 10 minutes from the zoo traffic on the Interstate came to a complete stop for a little over an hour due to a wreck.  We were stuck, and we were worried that with the boys being fussy from being trapped in the car not moving for an extra hour the day would be rough too.  Thankfully we were wrong.

When we got to the zoo the boys were so happy to get out of the car into their strollers.  It was so sweet to watch Dawson's face and see how excited he got about every animal.  The Birmingham Zoo was very nice, and the habitats were set up so that the animals were visible.  Out of all of the animals we saw, Dawson's favorite (based on which animal he now talks about the most) was the peacock.  There was an area near the cafe and pop jets where roosters, peacocks, and a few other birds roamed freely.  Dawson saw the peacock and began chasing it.  When we went inside to eat he had to sit near the window to watch the peacock.  He kept shouting,  "Come back!  Come back here peacock!"  Now we talk about the peacock multiple times a day. 

After eating lunch in the cafe near the peacock :) we changed the boys into their swim gear  so that they could play in the pop jets for a while.  Dawson was not as fond of this at the zoo as I had thought he would be.  It could have been because there were a few rowdy  bigger kids there too.  After getting a little wet to cool off, John and I took Dawson on the carousel. 

Next we visited the petting zoo where Dawson got to brush goats and see a sheep, llama, and a tiny owl that a zoo keeper was holding. 

Next we visited Trails of Africa which is the newest addition to the zoo.  We saw the lions and elephants up close, and then we were on to the giraffes.  The giraffe exhibit at the zoo was awesome.  You could go up on a platform and feed the giraffes out of your hand!  Dawson and I went up while John stayed below to snap a few pictures.  We got to feed him 2 big pellets (almost the size of my thumb) and 2 twigs of bamboo.  Dawson thought this was great!  Their long black tongues reached out and would lick your hand as they got the food.  (Don't worry we washed our hands really well after that!)  It was cool just to be at eye-level with the giraffes on the little platform, let alone feed them!

Another highlight of the trip for Dawson and Jack was when we rode on the train around the zoo.  It was probably about a 10-15 minute ride, and Dawson now loves to talk about how we rode a choo-choo!  Riding the train was also nice because the wind cooled us down a little from the hot temperatures that were in the 90's that day!  Other highlights for the boys were the turtles, geese (Dawson still talks about seeing "a geese with Pop" last time we were in Tennessee, so seeing geese at the zoo was really exciting for him), snakes, all kinds of birds (which Dawson now says, "birdie zoo LOUD!" because the macaws were super loud which Dawson didn't really like), a tiger, and more! 

We kept the boys up through nap time so they could see as much of the zoo as they wanted to, and they were exhausted when we left.  Dawson was asleep before we pulled out of the parking lot, and I'm pretty sure John was asleep before we hit the interstate (he worked the night before and did the zoo on a few hours sleep, so I had promised to drive home so he could rest).  We were all exhausted, but we had such an awesome trip to the zoo with our friends!

After resting in the car and coming home to grill dinner, we headed our to our friend's pool to swim!  Our friends, Mo and DeeDee are always so awesome to let us swim in their pool in the summer, and they live so close to us that we plan to be over there a lot more this summer!  :)  This was Dawson's first time in the pool this summer, and he was a lot more cautious than last year.  He did get in the water with John holding him, but he didn't just love it!  However, we went back to swim again on Sunday night (see our friends are going to regret giving us the open invitation! :) haha!), and Dawson was already more comfortable with getting in the water to swim.  Swimming with our friend was a nice way to relax and continue to cool off after spending the day sweating at the zoo!

Sunday we took Dawson to Dublin Park to play at Kid's Kingdom for a while.  Each time we go there, I'm amazed at how good of a climber he is.  He climbs right up the whole castle to go down slides or through tunnels.  After spending a while at Dublin we headed home to fill up the inflatable pool in our backyard since it was another scorcher.  We played in the water the rest of the morning, and then Dawson took almost a FOUR HOUR NAP!  We must have worn him out good because he usually doesn't even nap for 2 hours.  I think it was a combination of the zoo the day before too though.  I couldn't believe he slept that long.  After he got up we went back over to swim at our friends house again.

Then on Memorial Day we played in our yard in the kiddie pool, and went over to our friends, Ben and Melanie's house for a cook-out that night.  Dawson's friend Connor was there, and the boys enjoyed "racing" back and forth across the yard while the girls sat and chatted and the guys played corn hole.  Now Dawson likes to talk about "racing" Connor. 

Our Memorial Day weekend was jam-packed, and SO much fun!  I was not ready for it to end.

This morning Dawson and I invited some friends over to play in the kiddie pools and water in the backyard.  His friends Ethan, Austin, Jude, Jasper, Georgia, Jackson, and Connor all came and of course their moms.  I set up two slip-n-slides, the bigger kiddie pool, the smaller crab pool, the beach ball fountain, and the splash pad.  All of the kids had so much fun running and splashing together!  It was sweet to watch them.  After spending a couple of hours in the heat (it's 98 here today!) and running around the whole time, they should all be ready for AWESOME naps!

We have had a great past few days, and the fun should only continue as we are heading to Tennessee again this weekend to go to a friends wedding!  For now, enjoy the pictures below...

Left to right:  Jack, Dawson, and Gabe at the

Birmingham Zoo!

Dawson and Jack escaping from their

parents through the bamboo "forest."

"A geese"  No, we don't call it a goose.  When

Dawson saw this one goose (or swan, actually) at the zoo he

said, "A GEESE!"

Gorilla Dawson

Dawson and Mommy on the train.

Dawson and Daddy on the carousel.

Dawson on the carousel.

Dawson and Daddy brushing the goats.

Dawson being very sweet with the goats.

He kept trying to kiss them!

(You can see he still had on his water clothes

since we had just come from the pop jets.)

Dawson's view of the giraffes before

going up to feed them!

Dawson and Mommy getting ready to feed

the giraffes!

Dawson and Mommy feeding the 18 month old

giraffe named Willow.

Holding our pellets out for the giraffes!

Our view of the lion...so perfect it looks fake!

We got to see the elephants at feeding time.

They threw stuff into the water for the

elephants to get out and eat.

Dawson and Jack trying to climb up this elephant

in the Trails of Africa area.

Dawson and the elephant!

Birmingham Zoo Family Photo.

Dawson's first time in the pool for 2011.

It looks like Daddy is enjoying it more

than Dawson.  :)

Action shot of Dawson coming down the

tunnel slide at Kid's Kingdom.

Dawson and Connor racing at the Memorial Day

cookout.

Dawson and Connor checking out the slip-n-slide

fountain this morning in our backyard.

Dawson slippin' and slidin'!

More slip-n-slide fun with Dawson and Connor.

Dawson and Jude cooling off in the big kiddie pool.

The boys put the ball fountain in the pool!

More fun in the pool.

You can see Jackson in the crab pool and some

of the bigger boys in the bigger kiddie pool.

Fun in the water with friends!