I just learned that a short story I wrote about an adventure my husband and I had in Boston got published by Yahoo! Content. Here is the link: The Adventures of a Boston Tourist: The Unintended Parade. If you get the chance, check it out by clicking on the link. (Disclaimer: On Yahoo! Content, I get paid per view – it takes 1000 page views, I think, for me to earn $1.25. Even so you will recognize the style from my blog and if you like my blog, you will like this story.)
Nancy
Hi Everyone!
It’s been a while since I talked about our trip to Key West, but I still have a few more things to share and today is as good a day as any to talk about one of them.
First, a clarification: Today I am talking about THIS Little White House:
NOT this Little White House.
While the Little White House in Illinois, as you know from a previous post, has personal significance to me (The Magic of the Little White House), the Little White House in Key West has historical significance to all citizens of the United States. It used to be the home of Commander of the Naval Base located on Key West. However, at some point, President Taft needed to come to Key West, so the base commander offered the president his house, and ever since then, this house at Key West has been available for the use of the presidents, both current and past, of the United States.
President Truman used the Little White House more than any of the other presidents. I think the guide said that he stayed there about 172 days during his presidency. He used it as a vacation home where he could still conduct business.
As you can see from the picture above, the house is nice, but not overly grandiose. Outside of the entrance to the house, at least on the day we were there, was a sand sculpture of President Truman reading.
I would love to have pictures of the inside of the house to show you, but photography was not allowed during the tour. The guides at the Little White House who conduct the tours work on a volunteer basis (although tips are gratefully accepted), while the admission fee for the house goes to maintaining and preserving it. Our guide, whose name I remember because it was Nancy, gave an informative and interesting tour. Of all of the historical houses Mark and I have toured, this one had a unique feel to us because of the fact that some of the furnishings, which are from the 1950’s, reminded us of items we had seen in our own grandparents’ houses growing up. It made the history of this house, at least from when the Trumans were there, seem less remote. One particularly interesting item of furniture was the poker table in the corner of the living room used by President Truman and his aides. (A necessary clarification: none of our grandparents ever had a poker table; it was the sofas, outdoor furniture, chairs and bedroom furnishings that reminded us of them.)
An interesting fact that we learned while touring the house was that, through President Truman’s time in office, the President of the United States was expected to pay for all of the state dinners and White House functions out of his own personal funds. It was an enormous strain on President Truman, since he was not from a wealthy family originally. After President Truman, Congress included a separate entertainment budget for the President to use on top of his salary, so that no other President would suffer the kind of financial strain that Truman did in the process of fulfilling his or her obligations as head of state.
The Little White House is still available for the use of the President, or those people whom he designates, even though it is maintained under a private budget. I know this not only because our tour guide told us so, but also because we had tried to see the Little White House once before, years ago when we stopped at Key West for one day on a cruise, but it was closed to the public because it was being used by Colin Powell for a peace summit.
The tour begins and ends in a little gift shop built into the porch of the house; it is fun to browse through the store and look at the souvenirs and books available for purchase. The store manages to maintain a proper presence as a gift shop while still preserving the dignity of the house as a whole, which is not an easy feat.
Have a good day everyone!
Nancy
I hope your weekend went well. Both zoo day and Mother’s Day went well, so I am now awake, rested, refreshed and ready to face the new work week. (All right, at least I am awake!) For a change, I managed to wake up and start writing before the sun rose – the birds appear to be much more enthusiastic about this whole “pre-dawn” thing then I am. Morning people, how do you do it?
The trip to the zoo was fun. Basically, the school buses pull up to the zoo and let the kids off, the kids are distributed to assorted parents and then all of us are turned loose for the day with instructions to return at 11 for lunch and 1:00 for bus loading. In addition to Kayla, I had her friend Rebekah with us. There is a walk through aviary in the front part of the zoo that Kayla wanted us to go through (twice), so that’s where we started. Kayla found a feather in there, so I took her picture holding the feather. I took Rebekah’s picture holding the feather, too. To forestall any issue about whether Rebekah or Kayla got to keep the feather, I told them they needed to leave it in the enclosure.
We then worked our way around South and North America, including a visit to the reptile house (not my favorite place), the spider monkeys, several tamarin species, the jaguar and the ocelot. I had to explain to both girls that the “cute” ocelot was not the kind of cat one would really wish to have in their house! We also saw a sloth bear and several Patagonian capys (imagine something that looks like a cross between a rabbit and a kangaroo, but about three times as big as the rabbit.) The girls had the chance to go by the otter exhibit also, which is always popular.
The giraffes and lions are at the very center of the zoo, so you really can’t miss them as you travel across the zoo, and the female lion, the only one out on Friday, was roaring. With just a little imagination you can see what an eerie sound that would be out in the wilderness.
After lunch, we rode the train, and then I succumbed to the same temptation that seized most of the other parents at the zoo – I took the girls to the playground, turned them loose and found a comfortable bench. I was certainly not the only parent found on the park benches around the playground!
Of course, Mother’s Day was this weekend, and Mark and Kayla had a special surprise planned. They had gone to Sears and gotten their portrait taken for me. In addition to having several photos in various sizes printed out, they also purchased the disk of their photos, with a full release of copyright, so I can share some of the pictures with you (Hang in while I go see what Darwin is tossing up and down in his mouth…..ahhh, it’s one of my headbands, but I got it before too much damage was done. He’s not too happy with me.)
Anyway, here they are:
I am thrilled with them and am a lucky woman to have such a wonderful family!
Have a great day everyone!
Nancy
Posted in Just stuff..., working mom
Tagged daughter, dogs, family, parenting, travel, working mom, zoo
When we go back to Key West with Kayla some uncertain time in the future, one of the places I want to revisit is Fort Jefferson at the Dry Tortugas National Park.
As this 1994 map from the University of Texas Library’s web site shows, the Dry Tortugas consist of a group of seven islands, with surrounding waters, that lie about 70 miles away from Key West. The Dry Tortugas were named by Ponce De Leon, because, when he first saw the islands, they were covered with turtles. Tortuga is Spanish for turtle. However, after he had his men explore the seven keys that make up the Dry Tortugas, he also discovered that they had no groundwater, so he called them the “Dry” Tortugas. (Actually, he probably called them Las Secas Tortugas, since “seco”, I think, is the Spanish word for dry, but in the wonderful way that happens with place names, someone decided to split the difference and make the first word English and the last Spanish. “Dry Turtles” doesn’t exactly recommend itself as a name, does it? )
Mark and I at the entrance to Fort Jefferson
The largest of the seven keys, Garden Key, is where the fort was built. Construction was started in 1846. It took over thirty years to build and ultimately, due to the composition of the land beneath, was left unfinished when the third level of battlements ended up being too heavy for the ground supporting it. There were over 16 million bricks used in its construction!
Fort Jefferson in its heyday supported a full contingent of military personnel. This is a picture taken of the Fort from the top of the battlements, looking across the parade grounds to the other battlements to give you some size of its scope.
Originally, there were cannons placed in many of the openings under the archways. The field inside of the fort, now covered with grass and trees, served as the parade ground, and included barracks for the men as well.
At the beginning of the Civil War, in 1861, the United States Government decided to use Fort Jefferson as a federal prison. Probably the most famous inmate at the fort was Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, the doctor who set John Wilkes Booth’s leg after Booth assassinated Lincoln.
Sentenced to life imprisonment, Dr. Mudd was pardoned in 1869 by President Johnson, for his work at the Fort during an outbreak of yellow fever which killed many inmates as well as the prison doctor.
The Army left Fort Jefferson in 1874, and in 1908 the area became a wildlife refuge to protect the eggs of nesting birds from collectors. Then, in 1935, Fort Jefferson was named a national monument, and finally, in 1992, Fort Jefferson, Garden Key and the six surrounding keys as well as the surrounding waters were named the Dry Tortugas National Park.
Now, the only people living at the fort are people from the National Park Service. You have to request duty at the Dry Tortugas, and there is a rotation schedule that allows people to rotate in and out. They get their water from a cistern below the fort built by the army to collect rain water.
There are only two ways to get to Fort Jefferson: by boat or by plane. We took the Yankee II Ferry. The trip is an all day excursion; we left Key West promptly at 8 and returned around 5 or 5:30. It is a four hour round trip, so you end up with roughly five hours on the island. The Ferry provided us both breakfast and lunch. Ferry personnel also gave guided tours of the Fort, which we enjoyed very much.
Although I am not a great lover of heights, there was enough land at the top of the battlements that I was able to overcome my fear to take a good look out, and I was glad that I did!
Here is a picture of Mark from the top of the wall, with the sea behind him:
Here is another picture from the top of the wall:
One of the best things about the day trip to Fort Jefferson is that not only do you tour the historic fort but also there is a small beach to the left of the entrance of the fort that leads to you an area where you can snorkel around the fort. On our way over to the beach, we saw this pelican, which had landed on the pier:
I have an inordinate fondness for pelicans, so whenever I see one that is close enough, I pretty much have to take a picture of it.
Mark snorkeled for a good long time, and tried out the disposable underwater camera we bought specifically for this excursion. Here are a few of the pictures he got:
This was the first time we had every tried an underwater camera. Next time, we might go ahead and buy a digital one that works underwater.
I went snorkeling with Mark about the last hour of the trip. By that time, we were out of film, but he had discovered that the more colorful and diverse sea life was up where the sea met the wall of the fort, so we explored that area for a while.
The keys surrounding Fort Jefferson are also interesting in their own right, as the only nesting places in the Northern Hemisphere for certain types of birds, including the magnificent frigate bird – yes, “magnificent” is part of the name, and yes, it is truly deserved – and many sooty terns. You could see the rookery of the frigate birds in the distance, but the sooty tern rookery was on Bush Key, which is less than a stone’s throw from Garden Key, and the swarm of terms surrounding the key was phenomenal.
The Magnificent Frigate Bird
The Sooty Tern
We returned on the Ferry to Key West relaxed, refreshed and thoroughly sunburned. (Note to self: Sunburns happen even on cloudy days!). I can’t wait to do it all over again with Kayla some day!
Have a great day everyone!
Nancy
P.S. I had a lot of trouble with photographs for some reason today, so I wish to note here that I found the map of the Dry Tortugas on the website of the Library of the University of Texas, the photographs of Dr. Mudd on the Famous Trials Page, Lincoln Conspiracy, from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School web site, and the photographs of the two birds on Wikipedia in the public domain. They were taken by two employees of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
Good morning everyone!
One of the fascinating aspects of living in a small town is learning the language, both spoken and non-spoken. For example,when a person honks their horn at your car, the odds are pretty good that they are just trying to say hello. I learned this lesson over 20 years ago, when Mark and I traveled to a small town in South Carolina.
In the middle of town, on the main 45 miles per hour thoroughfare, we got behind an elderly couple going 25 miles an hour. Not being from a small town at that time, Mark honked his horn, hoping to encourage them to drive a little faster. When he did so, the driver, the man, looked in his rear view mirror to see who we were and turned to his wife and asked her, “Do you know them?” The wife looked in the rear view mirror at us and turned to her husband and said, “No.” They both took one more look to be sure, and then, on cue, not wanting to be rude, both of them waved at us on the off-chance we might indeed be someone they knew. We waved back, and resigned ourselves to going 25 miles per hour until they decided to turn left.
I have a junk drawer in the kitchen. Well, actually, I have four junk drawers in the kitchen and need to pare down, but one of them is supposed to be the designated spot for pens and pencils, so I always know where I can get a writing utensil. I have decided that this drawer is magic – the pens disappear from the drawer, and never turn back up. Ever. I buy 10 pack after 10 pack of pens, with a few good pens thrown in from time to time, but there never is a pen in there when I need one. The pencils, however, hang around indefinitely. I am beginning to suspect that the pencils are the main culprits. How else can you explain a drawer with the same 20 pencils I put in there originally, and not a single one of the 50 to 60 odd pens remaining? Someday, I am going to find the place to which the pens are magically transported, and suffer a serious injury when I open it and the flood of pens pours out on me, proving yet again that a pen is indeed mightier than a sword!
Have a great day everyone!
Nancy
Posted in Just stuff..., On the Home Front, working mom
Hi Everyone!
I have covered bits and pieces of our trip to Key West over the last few weeks, and considering that the trip itself was only four days, there has been an amazing amount of material, but now we are winding down to the last few topics.
While the Hemingway House was both intriguing and inspirational, and the visit to the Key West cemetery reflective, a trip to the Southern part of the island is simply one of those cheerful touristy things that tourists do when they go to Key West. Over towards the Atlantic ocean side of the island, the two or three blocks that lead to the Southernmost point are covered with things dubbed the “Southernmost” – the Southernmost restaurant, the Southernmost Hotel, the Southernmost Inn, the Southernmost grocery store, the Southernmost dog (well, they didn’t really have a Southernmost dog, but I am surprised that someone didn’t think to bring a dog and hang a plaque around its neck saying so!)
The Southernmost point in the continental United States is actually not quite the Southernmost point – there is an antenna off a jetty behind a fence that you can see from the point dubbed the Southernmost point that is a little more South, but a) you can’t reach it, and b) it is built on land that was created/dredged/reclaimed by filling in the water, so in a typically pragmatic fashion, Key West has continued to call the Southernmost point, the Southernmost point.
To be sure that it is recognized, someone placed a (very colorful, can’t be missed) monument there stating that it is the southernmost point.
Mark and I at the "Southernmost" Point
There was a line to have your picture taken at the monument, and the family in front of us was kind enough to take a picture of both of us with our camera.
Although it is kind of touristy, it is not a complete gimmick, as there are some interesting historical sites surrounding the southernmost point.
The most recognizable site is the Southernmost House. The history of the Southernmost house is set out in this plaque:
The Southernmost House, itself, is a Victorian mansion complete with all the trimmings. We did not tour the house while we were there (after all, you have to save something for the next time), but we took several pictures of it, including the following.
As the posted sign by the Southernmost House noted, the mansion was built in 1897. Technically, it is no longer the very southernmost house anymore, as someone came in and built one house right behind it on the block leading to the Southernmost Monument that is more Southerly, but, I guess, age having its privileges. this mansion was the Southernmost House originally, so the Southernmost House it shall remain!
At the very corner of the turn to reach the monument, there is a structure known as the cable house. It didn’t look like much, but appearances, as the placard on the cable house showed, can be deceiving.
The Cable House
Its history:
The Southernmost Point/House/Inn/Hotel/Motel was simply a fun, cheerful trip, and cost almost nothing (we even were lucky enough to find a parking spot we didn’t have to pay for!) and, in its own way, was as much a highlight of our trip as the other adventures were.
Have a great day everyone!
Nancy
Side wall of the Hemingway House Grounds
We came to the house this way because parking is a premium in Key West, and we found a lot about four blocks away, just after the intersection of Whitehead and Southard Streets as you head towards the Atlantic ocean, where you could park all day for $20, and he would let you drive away and come back to the lot later in the day.
Cat in the Ticket Booth
This friendly feline was helping to greet visitors in the ticket booth. Ernest Hemingway liked cats, and was particularly fond of those cats who have a mutation that gives them six toes. The more scientific name is a “polydactyl” cat. He had somewhere between 40 and 60 living on the grounds at the house while he was there, and the people who take care of the house now keep the population also around 40 to 50 cats. Interestingly, each cat’s birth is recorded, so each of the cats currently residing at the house has its own geneological record. The cats are everywhere through the grounds and the house and the staff works hard to keep them happy, so the cats will stay there. (This was the one spot in Key West where we didn’t see any roosters; I wonder why? 🙂 The roosters may be ubiquitous in Key West, but apparently they are not stupid!)
The European Chandelier
This chandelier came from Europe and includes Venetian glass. Pauline shipped it from Europe to use as a centerpiece of the house, and apparently it was the talk of the town once it was installed. The house was originally built by a doctor, who paid to have the limestone coral base rock excavated to provide the only full basement in the city of Key West. It sits on a full acre of land, which also makes it one of, if not the, largest homesteads in Key West.
Frances, the Cat, Asleep in the Master Bedroom
In the master bedroom, our tour group found Frances the cat comfortably curled up on the pillows at the top of the bed. Yes, Frances really is her name; our tour guide told us that she was the least interactive among all of the cats at the house. Laying there asleep in the master bedroom is as close as she gets to interaction.
Books that Belonged to Hemingway
The upstairs hallway, although a little narrow, is lined with bookshelves on one side. These books are not necessarily the ones that were in the house when Ernest Hemingway lived there, but they are books he owned and used or books given to him as gifts. He had an estate in Cuba after he left Key West around 1939, and he kept most of his books there. Unfortunately, the estate was confiscated by Castro after the Bay of Pigs invasion.
The View from the Upper Veranda
There is a huge veranda that wraps around the outside of the house on the second floor. Mark took this picture for me. On the front side of the veranda, you get a wonderful view of the Key West lighthouse through the branches of the African Tulip Tree on the house grounds. The African Tulip Tree, as you might tell from the name, is not native to the Keys, and in the city of Key West they are rare. The flowers on it are striking.
Lounging in the Writer's Studio
One of the cats had found its way into the writer’s studio (human visitors can only view the studio through a piece of clear plastic, but the estate owners left an opening large enough in the bottom of the barrier for the cats to get in.) He or she looked quite comfortable.
One of the Cat Feeding Areas
The estate has several areas where food is put out for the cats, and this was one of them. It is between the house, and the writer’s studio and pool. None of the cats were around it at the time we were there, but I am sure it is a frequent haunt of theirs!
Finally, since I was there as a tourist, and not thinking about blogging at the moment, I neglected to take a picture of the pool, but it is a beautiful salt water pool put on the grounds by Pauline. It cost $20,000 to build in the 1930’s. The dollar equivalent today I cannot even begin to calculate. The reason it was so expensive is the hard coral bedrock of the island. It took an extraordinary amount of manpower to excavate the bedrock out in order to put the pool in. According to the tour guide, Pauline put to pool in while Ernest Hemingway was off on a trip somewhere. When he came back, he tossed a penny in the pool, telling her that she might as well have his last cent, too. She took it with good grace, given that it was her family’s money that paid for the pool, but kept the penny. The same penny now is covered by plexiglass on the pool deck.
Now a confession – I really can’t remember much about Hemingway’s writing, since I haven’t read anything of his since high school. I do remember he had a spare writing style that let a few words do a lot of work. However, my curiosity was piqued, so after we got back from Key West I hopped onto my trusty Kindle and downloaded two of his books that I hope to get to read sometime soon. I really, really enjoy my Kindle, but that is a topic for another day!
Have a great weekend everyone!
Nancy
Posted in Travel
Tagged cat, Ernest Hemingway, Key West, parking, travel, tulip tree, writing
Good morning everyone! We have made it to Wednesday, and the weekend is in sight.
The same thing happens to me every spring – no, I don’t mean allergies. At some point in the spring, I find myself wandering through the garden section of the local Wal-Mart or Home Depot, looking at all of the flowers and vegetables that are available. Even though I know any flower I plant has a less than 40% chance of survival (it’s the whole watering thing that gets me), visions of luscious gardens on a par with those at Calloway Gardens or Bellingrath gardens dance through my head, causing me to fall into some kind of a trance. I wake up from the trance headed toward the car with a buggy full of flowers to plant that probably will die since they are not cacti and can’t live without watering. Sigh. I did manage to restrain myself somewhat this year; I got two big pots of peonies for the front porch (last year I managed to keep two similar pots alive through about June), some grass seed and fertilizer to use on bare spots in the back yard, and then caladium, lily and gladioli bulbs for two specific (small) areas in the front. I envy all of you out there who are great gardeners!
On to the roosters – here are two pictures Mark took for me of a rooster in Key West.
The most unusual thing about the roosters of Key West is the fact that is it not unusual to see one – they (and the hens and chicks) wander the streets freely and are protected from any harm by a city ordinance. I never did quite figure out why there are so many of them and why they are allowed the run of the city streets, but they don’t bother anyone and their colors are striking. We not only saw a lot of roosters, but a couple of hens with their chicks following them at various places. I was trying to imagine what it would be like for our family to live in Key West, and couldn’t get much past the image of No-no (Mandy) and Bad Dog (Darwin) repeatedly escaping from our yard to chase the roosters, and being brought back by the Key West police with multiple citations for us to deal with!
For those of you who were wondering where Kayla was in the middle of all of this, she was having a great time with her Grandma Dottie. One day, for example, they went to the butterfly farm, where no less than three butterflies landed on her!
Mom said that Kayla sat still as long as this butterfly was sitting on her foot, and that that was several minutes! One of the attendants was kind enough to take their picture together.
You have to look really close at Kayla to see it, but there is another butterfly on the foot that is toward the front, which is why she is standing so still.
Kayla likes a lot of insects. About the only ones she doesn’t like, and won’t handle or come near, are stinging insects like bees and wasps, spiders and cockroaches. I have learned how to kill spiders if called upon to do so (revolutionary though that is to those who knew me in my youth) but I still won’t do cockroaches. Mark has to be called in for a job like that. Fortunately, we have only had one to kill the four years plus we have been in this house, and it conveniently appeared on a night when Mark was home!
Have a great day everyone!
Nancy
Posted in Just stuff..., Pets, Travel, working mom
Tagged butterfly, dogs, Key West, roosters, spring, travel, working mom
For those of you who didn’t know, or couldn’t guess from the pictures on Friday, Mark and I had the chance to go to Key West and stay for a few days during Kayla’s Spring Break, since Kayla wanted to spend Spring Break with my mom in Florida. Key West is a long way from Alabama, so we finally got down there last Monday. The very first thing we did once we got there was to drive to the end of U.S. 1. This is a picture of the sign marking the end of U.S. 1. It gave me quite an unreasonable sense of accomplishment to have driven to the end of U.S. 1, but doing so, and traveling by car down the entire length of the Keys from Miami to Key West, are two things I have always wanted to do, and I finally got to do both on Monday! Hence, the title: at the end of U.S. 1, our vacation began!
As with any good trip, the journey to the destination had its moments, also. The funniest came on the first leg of the trip, when we met my Mom and Kayla ( who were driving back to Mom’s house in a separate car) for lunch at the Cracker Barrel in Tifton. Because St. Patrick’s Day was approaching, Mom decided to have corn beef and cabbage, which Cracker Barrel usually only sells during the first part of March. Kayla finished eating before the other three of us, and was looking at what Mom was eating, so Mom, deducing that Kayla would not be interested in the corned beef or the cabbage, asked her if she would like to try some of the potatoes or carrots that came with the corned beef and cabbage. Kayla looked at her and said emphatically, “I am NOT a vegetarian!” Mark and I had to laugh!
We reached home Saturday, and so yesterday we spent just kind of catching up on things. While we were gone, pine pollen season arrived in Alabama. Pine pollen season is extraordinary; a fine yellow-green dust covers everything that is standing still! For example, here are two pictures of one of our cars from Sunday. It is a black car, and had no pollen on it when we arrived at the house on Saturday. After only one night of sitting outside, this is what it looked like:
Pollen Close-up
The plus side of pine pollen season is that it also means that the roses in front of our house have started blooming again. For someone like me, who has a brown, not a green, thumb, (It’s the watering part that I fail at – as well as the weeding once the temperatures around here reach the mid to upper 90’s and stay there until at least September) the roses around the front of our house are a dream come true. They are called Knock-out Roses: they need no work (I know this because I have done nothing with them the entire time we have been in the house, except to have the man who works on our yard for us to trim the bushes in the fall) and they bloom profusely all but about two months out of the year!
It was nice to have the roses greet us when we got home!
I have a lot more to say about Key West, and will spend several days saying it, but for now, it is time to get ready for work.
Have a great day everyone!
Nancy
Posted in Out of the mouths of babes...., Travel
Tagged blooming, daughter, humor, Key West, roses, spring, travel, working mom
Kayla has always been terrified of thunderstorms. About a year ago, I was reminded of how much.
After I picked Kayla up from after-school care, she and I needed to stop at the grocery store. As we went in, a cloud was coming up from the west, but I thought we could get in and out of the store before the storm reached us. Unfortunately, I was wrong.
Right after we had gone through the check-out line, the leading edge of the storm hit, complete with fierce wind and driving rain. Kayla wanted to stay at the store until the storm blew over, and I flat out refused. She clung to my hand in the store and said, “But Mama, I am so light and I don’t want to blow away!” I told her to hold my hand, as I was pretty sure I wouldn’t blow away. Clinging to my hand like it was a lifeline and she was lost at sea, we hurried across the parking lot, where I safely deposited her in the car, after which I put the groceries in the back, got in the driver’s seat, and headed us back home.
Unfortunately, we have several stop lights to go through before we reach the house, and one of them turned red. I stopped. Kayla started pleading from the front seat, “Mama, please keep going. I don’t care if you go to jail, let’s just go through the light.” (Item: There were nine cars ahead of me!). I said wryly, “Thanks.” and she replied, “I don’t care if we both go to jail, just keep on going!”
Luckily for me, the light changed then so we could keep going forward. I was trying to help her, so I told her to try closing her eyes and instead of listening to the thunder, listen to the rain hitting the roof. She tried that for a minute, then opened her eyes back up again with a “What now?” look. I said to her, “Now, pretend that the sound you are hearing is either fairies or pixies dancing on the roof.” At that, she opened her eyes wide, looked at me, and, this child who had been losing her mind in the thunderstorm, stated matter of factly, “Mom, you’re embarrasing yourself.” At least she stopped thinking about the storm for a minute!
Mark and I recently had the opportunity to spend some time on vacation at an absolutely wonderful place! I am waiting for some pictures we took with an old-fashioned disposable camera to get developed before I talk about it, but I will definitely have a lot to share next week. See if you can guess where the place was by the following pictures (no fair guessing if you already know where we went!):
Have a great weekend everyone!
Nancy
Posted in Out of the mouths of babes...., Travel, When things don't go as expected
Tagged daughter, humor, kids, thunderstorm, travel, vacation, working mom
Genuine Blogger Award, 6/13/2011
Tales from the Mom-Side 