Quick trip to Nashville

On Friday afternoon, David, Elizabeth and I drove down to Nashville to spend the night. Elizabeth did fairly well in the car both ways - David had primed her with lots of talk about watching the "little TV" (i.e., DVD player) in the car. She's already expressed her displeasure that it disappeared as soon as we returned home. But, she continued her tradition of not napping (either way) while travelling in the car.

She did have fun in the hotel room. She liked "calling" and sending "e-mail" to Barney on the spare phone in the room.



Plus, she had a bedful of toys and books to play with, once she dumped her suitcase out on the bed.



We ate dinner with Cousin Robyn at the Rainforest Cafe on Friday night. We thought all the animals and hoopla would be a good distraction for Elizabeth. However, since she was virtually napless that day (except for a few minutes in the car just before we got to the restaurant), the noise just proceeded to mask her fit-throwing during dinner. A very tired almost-2-year-old is not a force to be reckoned with! We even skipped out on the yummy-looking desserts to get her back to the hotel. However, once there, she redeemed herself by playing with Robyn a little bit.



She also continued her tradition of not sleeping well in the hotel room. She didn't go to sleep until almost 11pm our time, then she woke up about every 2 hours after that. Plus, her internal alarm clock went off (as always) bright and early at 6:30am (7:30am our time), much to our chagrin.

On Saturday morning, we took Elizabeth to the Nashville Zoo to meet an online friend of mine, who has a little boy (Stone) who was also born in May 2005. The kids had a blast! The weather was beautiful, and we had a great time getting to know each other and taking Stone and Elizabeth around to see the animals.

We started out taking the kids to the toddler play area, which had a large bouncy floor that the kids could run and jump on. Elizabeth was hesitant at first, but once Stone showed her how he could run, jump, and tumble, she tried it out a bit.



Then, they wanted to check out the rest of the playground, so they spent time on the swings and playing at the sandboxes:



Elizabeth wasn't sure about all the large animal sculptures at the playground. Stone was a brave boy and went right up to touch the huge snake, but none of us could convince Elizabeth to get any closer to the snake than this:



But, after Elizabeteh saw how brave Stone was with the snake, she did decide to hold his hand so he could protect her!

Then, it was off to the carousel, where Elizabeth actually decided to ride the "kitty-cat" - which was a big step for her. She usually refuses to ride any of the animals that move.



Of course, I think Stone's willingness to jump right up on the big elephant helped to convince her.

Then, it was off to check out the real elephants. They both had a great time watching them...although Stone couldn't convince Elizabeth to call them "Zoe" - the Japanese word for "elephant." (Stone and his family just moved to the United States from Japan!)

After that, we decided to break for lunch. Apparently, the excitement of the day (plus the lack of sleep in the hotel the night before) was too much for Elizabeth - she went right into a dead sleep! So, the rest of us looked at more animals while she took a short power nap. After she woke up, we looked at a few more exhibits, then it was time to head home. Of course, she didn't sleep any on the way home either, thanks to that little nap!

But, we had a great time, and the weather was beautiful. It was fun to see Elizabeth really enjoying the zoo and the animals this time!