Quotables Two: Drumsticks & Cheeky Belle

Me: "Honey, what do you think if I make fried chicken for our lunch with friends on Sunday?  I thought I'd just fry up a bunch of drumsticks."

Hubby: "Well, you know I'm not crazy about dark meat..."

Me: "I know...but c'mon...is it that it tastes BAD, or what??"

Hubby: "No, it's just the meat...I just prefer the breast."

Belle: "Which kind?"  (*snicker, snort, giggle, blush*)

Moo: (Quietly looking wide-eyed and scandalized by the comment from her little sister)

Me & Hubby:  (Improvisationally trying on several reactions--for 10 seconds we pretended we didn't know what she was talking about...then we tried looking a little stern...then, after remembering that we spent yesterday evening guffawing over the many funny ways to talk about the planet Uranus, realized we hadn't a claim to moral high ground here...so we grinned and told her to go get ready for bed.)

There are times that I feel like I haven't a clue how to navigate the coming years, and then there are other times that I think there is a whole lot of fun and laughter ahead.  So, in other words, I'm increasingly faced with parenting scenarios in which I don't know whether to laugh or cry.  I choose both.  :)

Quotables

Belle: "I'm very independent. I think you're going to have trouble with me when I'm older."

In Touch with Monkies

Yesterday, my sister let me know that my four year old nephew Jaiden was trying to Skype us. After getting our Skype up and running, the girls got to spend several minutes giggling at their cousins (a.k.a. "the monkies"). Since Belle likes to take snapshots of the screen during Skype calls, I have a visual record of what it is like to try to carry on a web cam chat with a two and four year old.  Think constant motion.  Think over-exposed silliness. 

A Capitol Visit

Today, we went to Nashville.  We weren't quite sure what all we were going to do or see, but we set out to see what we could discover in our new backyard.

First, the grounds of Centennial Park where you can find a number of structures--the biggest being the full size replica of the Parthenon.  It was built in 1897, and in 1990 a 42 foot statue of Athena was placed within.  The building is large and impressive, but I found it a little depressing to not only imagine the time, treasure and toil applied by the ancients in the pursuit of the favor of their imaginary goddess--but to also see the time, treasure and toil spent in the modern age to commemorate and replicate such things.  Ah, well...

Walking up, you get a sense of the huge scale of the building just from the side.  Remember to pay attention to these columns as we get closer.

One thing for sure: seeing the Parthenon in Nashville on a Sunday morning is a LOT more quiet and solitary activity than what we would experience in Greece!  We had the whole place to ourselves!

See?!?  A picture with me in it!  Yes, that's me in the red.  :)

Remember what those columns looked like from afar?  Up close, they are HUGE.

My skinny Moo unwittingly demonstrates the hugeness of each column by nestling within one of the grooves to pose for this picture. 

Now THIS is a door:

Can't tell how big...

...until you add some familiar "objects" for a sense of scale.

The ceiling is inlaid tile. This is all the way around the perimeter of the building.

This is the park around the grounds of the Parthenon.

A view down the looooong side of the building.

Here is a video of the front of the building:

Next, we took advantage of the ghost town atmosphere to explore the grounds of the capitol building and the WWI war memorial.

The following two pictures are looking both ways down the road in front of the Capitol.

Next, we went to the WWI war memorial that had giant plaques with the names of all the Tennesseans who lost their lives in The Great War.  This video shows the inside space of the memorial better than any picture could.  I apologize ahead of time for the (MY) irreverent giggling in the memorial.  I am terribly immature, I know.

The front of the memorial.

This is a view of the capitol building from right in front of the WWI memorial.

The girls actually loved all the steps leading up to each of these buildings.

We found some Grants who lost their lives in the war.

This is the marble block that the big bronze naked guy that made me giggle is standing on top of--just trying again to get scale across.

We had a nice day at the Capitol, just the four of us...I mean, literally, it was just us!