Franklin Touch-a-Truck

Every once in a while, the City of Franklin cleans up some of its civic duty trucks, brings them to Pinkerton Park, and allows the local kids to climb all over them, honk horns, and push all sorts of buttons in them.  They call it "Touch-a-Truck", which conjures up all sorts of images of these poor vehicles being molested.  Then again, I imagine their real drivers do take their lives in their hands when they start the trucks up afterwards.

But, it is a ton of fun -- not just for the kids, but for us parents, too.  I also get the impression that the volunteers who gave up their Friday night to show kids the ambulances, trash trucks, etc. really enjoyed showing off their rides.  (Especially the cherry picker guy.  That guy seemed to be having a ball.  He was up and down and over here and then over there, swooping around like Spiderman at the end of the cherry picker arm.)

TRUCK ONE:  Touch me first.

TRUCK TWO:  No, me first!

Cherry Picker Guy:  WHEEEEEEE!

Charlotte:  Nice.  How do I honk the horn?

Cherry Picker Guy:  WHEEEEEE!

 Charlotte:  This seat is a little low.  Just a little bit.

Charlotte:  This is my new pet fire truck.  His name is Squirty.

Niki:  This is the truck that picks up our yard waste.

Peter:  There's a stick.  Pick it up with the pneumatic arm!

Niki, the kids, and the police who will become very familiar to us once Peter can drive.

Niki and the kids found the CIRT van.  

Inside the CIRT Van.

Peter:  Guys with guns?  Check.  Location of the bad guys?  Check.  Wearing sunglasses, a muscle shirt, and "super jump shoes" instead of a uniform?  Check.  I'm ready.  Let's roll.

By far, the biggest star of the show was this Peterbilt.

Daddy:  Pull this to release the air-brake and we're rollin'.  I'll keep my foot on the gas.  You keep the bears off our ass.

Peterbilt dashboard.

After Touch-a-Truck, we returned to Cannonwood to play cornhole with the Marshalls.  Dan built the boards and Niki sewed the bags.  David and  Alicia started off the evening with a few practice tosses.

What the heck is going on here?  Seriously.  I have no idea.

In some places, "it's not over until the fat lady sings."  In Cannonwood, "it's not over until the toddler boy collapses on Bubba Pig."  This phrase just doesn't have the same ring.

Water play on a sunny day

The day of my birthday, I decided we needed to do something fun.  All the kids ever want to do is to play in water of any kind, so I decided to capitalize on that.  (Well, they love dirt probably the most, but water is a very close second.)  For some reason, I started the activity with the kids dressed in regular clothes.  Stupid!  Stupid!!  Stupid!!!

How on earth does she always manage to look so goofy in photos?  The big news, however, was that Charlotte actually let me put pigtails in her hair for a few hours!  She was probably just humoring me so I would fill all sorts of containers with water and let them go bananas.  It worked.

Both kids whined when their clothes got wet (Peter asked me to "wipe it off, pweese"), so I busted out the bathing suits.  (Trust me -- Peter is wearing something behind all those bowls.)

Much of the time Charlotte was off running around on a flight of fancy with a bucket of water, but Peter stayed put for a reeeeeeally long time mixing and pouring like a miniature mad scientist.

Things were getting rowdy, so I steered them toward washing their rides.  They decided the best method would be to use foam brushes.

Lunch outside was a must.

Not long after, I had to lure them back inside to be changed in time for Peter to take a nap.  Charlotte ripped her pigtails out, and I tried not to be too sad.  I have no idea what that child has against wearing things in her hair, but if she doesn't let me braid her hair sometime in the next few years I'm going to have to grow Peter's hair out.

Just kidding!  Well, maybe . . .

The monkeys visit the zoo

My little monkeys and I joined my friend Kym, her parents, and her three monkeys (oops, I mean kids) at the Nashville Zoo on Friday.  It was a freakishly cold day, but it ended up being a much better zoo experience than a usual hot June day.  

Unfortunately, a lot of the photos I took that day are of the backs of the kids as they gawked at the animals.  It's hard to get good reaction shots when you can't climb into the animal enclosures to do it.

Odie found an alligator to ride in the playground area.

Peter found a huge snake!

The snake turned out to be a cool tunnel.  Peter ran through it about 40 times.

Luke found a hippo!

Some hunters tried to catch Peter in a big net.

Waiting anxiously to enter the lorikeet enclosure to feed some birdies.

Charlotte was a pro at feeding the birds with the nectar cups!

The birds mistook Luke for a tree.

Grumpy even after a picnic lunch?

Revisiting the scene of her famous goat-accessorizing incident!

Charlie Jo and Luke tried to blend in with the flamingos.

Odie and Petey each brought a favorite stuffed animal.  Petey, however, decided to take a siesta on his for some reason.

Poor Kym spent most of the time that Gabe was out of the stroller chasing after the soon-to-be-two-year-old as he raced ahead of the group.  Charlie Jo and Luke look so cute holding hands as they tried to keep up with the little sprinter.

Check out that alligator skull!  Odie and Charlotte look like they're featuring it as a prize on "The Price Is Right."

Somebody get these monkeys back in their cages!

Charlotte and Peter take on Texas

I left our week-long vacation in Texas without a single photo because I plumb forgot to load them onto a flash drive before we left.  Whoops.  Until I get my hot little hands on those shots, you can check out my sister's point of view on the trip here, here, here, and here.  She posted probably the best of the pictures, but I'm sure there's a few fun ones she missed.  Stay tuned!

A sweet moment . . .

"It's okay Peter -- sometimes I'm sad too.  It will be okay."

Old Hickory Lake

Corey is much more willing to pack up the kids and head out to do outdoorsy things than I am.  When he suggested we head out to a lake today, my first thought was "ugh".  Turns out, I was totally wrong (today, anyway).  Not only was the weather perfect, but the beach was nice and the kids had crazy amounts of fun.  We drove about 40 minutes out to Old Hickory Lake (the only thing I know about that lake is that Johnny Cash used to own a home on the lake, and it was subsequently burned down while one of the Gibb brothers was renovating it).  The kids were beyond excited to be there.

Okay, Charlotte looks slightly less crazy in this photo.

The temperature was about 92 degrees and there were just a few fluffy clouds in the sky.  The water temperature was perfect -- refreshing but not too cold.  I sat in a low beach chair in the water nearly the entire time we were there and I never felt too hot or too chilly -- ideal for my extremely narrow comfort range.

Petey was a little timid in the water at first (we haven't swam very much in the past couple of years because I'm so lazy about the logistics of such a feat), but after a half an hour or so he was splashing all around and having a grand old time.

Corey decided Charlotte was part river otter.

Come get me and swim me out to the booby, Daddy!  (Peter was pretty sure a buoy was called a "booby").

Practicing their Cirque du Soleil acts:

My boys!  Corey is between pairs of sunglasses right now, so he borrowed an old pair of mine.  I tried not to tease him too much.

Save me, Daddy, save me!

We managed to stop the kids from swimming to eat a little bit of lunch before they raced back to swim again, but then we had to drag them out of the water kicking and screaming to go home.  They were pretty sure we should stay there all day.  It was getting a lot more crowded and we figured they had gotten enough sun though, so we packed up and headed back to Franklin.  We will definitely be returning again soon though!

Two more that I missed . . .

We have a little bit of cabin fever from our self-imposed quarantine due to Charlotte's coxsackie virus outbreak and my declaration that our TV addiction has gotten out of control (thus limiting TV to one hour per day).  The kids are playing like angels right now though, so I have a few minutes to post two more sweet photos of my little bubba with his favorite pillow pets.  Sometimes I bemoan the fact that Peter has chosen such bulky security items, but I must admit it is pretty cute to see him dragging these buddies all over the house.  I just love these pictures:

Lying on pink bubba and hugging bubba foo-foo:

And during a hunger strike, when he refused to eat dinner and wanted to sleep on the couch instead.  I was able to change his diaper and put on his jammies without a peep out of him but when I tried to carry him up to bed he suddenly wanted to eat dinner instead.