Sunday, February 20, 2011

Jessica and Daddy's Excellent Adventure

Last Friday, Jessica and I drove up to Chattanooga to spend the night on Lookout Mountain and go to Rock City and generally have an adventure. It was our first daddy-daughter overnight outing, and we had a great time.

We stayed at the Sky Harbor Bavarian Inn on Lookout Mountain. We had stopped at Gwinnett Place on the way up to get a couple of sticker books for the trip, and the first thing Jessica wanted to do was sit on the bed in our room and work on her Cinderella sticker book:


Here's the view of the Tennessee River and Chattanooga from our room:


When she was able to tear herself away from her sticker book, Jessica came out on the porch to try out the rocking chairs:


We went to the mall for supper that night, ate some Chick-Fil-A and looked around the Barnes & Noble for a while, and then went back to the Inn to go to bed. (Jessica had insisted that we get a room with two double beds because, as she said, when she and I shared a bed on our Pensacola trip after Christmas, "you kicked me.") It took us a while to get to sleep, and Jessica woke me up three times during the night to say, "Daddy, you're snoring too loud." But we did manage to get in most of a good night's sleep.

We awoke Saturday morning to this sunrise:


and a little later, when the sun was poking up over the horizon:


We met Kevin and Lisa Eames at the Starbucks across from Rock City and visited with them for over an hour; Jessica was very patient with us, working on her Cinderella sticker book and making her own occasional contributions to our discussion. But then we said our good-byes and great-to-see-yous (it really was), and the Eameses went home, and Jessica and I went to Rock City:



It was very windy up at the top of the mountain, here at the point from which you can (so they have for years claimed) See Seven States:


We had a great trip, but of course eventually had to come home. We left a little after two o'clock and drove straight home; Jessica slept almost all the way, and I listened to Bob Edwards Weekend on the UTC NPR station until the signal got too weak, then switched to some episodes of X Minus One on my MP3 player.

I'm so glad I had this wonderful trip with my daughter, and can't wait for our next outing!

Monday, February 14, 2011

Tempted About Tinkerbell

This afternoon as we were driving home from school, Jessica was going through the bag of goodies that she got from her classmates during their Valentine's Day party. I told her she could look at the candy, but we weren't going to eat any until we got home.

She looked for a minute at a green sucker embossed with the likeness of Tinkerbell. Then she called up to me, "Could you keep this up front? I'm tempted about Tinkerbell."

By the time we got home, more than half of the contents of her goody bag was sitting on the passenger seat up front. Most candy, it turns out, is tempting to a four-year-old.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Jessica Reading

Sometimes Jessica likes to pretend she needs Mommy's glasses to read:


Though it doesn't usually take her long to realize she can see better without them:


She isn't actually reading this story, by the way, but she was telling a story as she looked at the book. It had nothing to do with A Witch's Garden by Miriam Young, however.