Appreciate the Adventure

See it Again!

Posted on 04/24/2014 by ashleekiser

Ian and I visited one of our favorite places again yesterday: Rock City. We started the day with an early drive to Chattanooga (with Biscuit in tow; thanks Dottie!), to meet up with Ian’s Nana and Aunt Joy. Our first stop took place at our now traditional lunch at Noodles & Company, Ian’s favorite restaurant. Then it was on to Rock City for a day on top of Look Out Mountain.

Ian has grown quite a bit since we visited last fall, and he definitely has improved coordination. He took considerable more notice of his surroundings on this trip, so we actually slowed down some this time as he wanted to explore every inch of the mountain. The weather couldn’t have been better. A pleasant 70-75 degrees all afternoon, the sun shined well received rays after the long, dismal winter we’ve had.

Mogwai came with us for the last trip, so Chaco finally got to take her turn for yesterday’s adventure. To say she was excited would be an understatement. She loves to visit new places, and thinks everyone came to the park just to see her. She couldn’t understand why some people would walk right past her without stopping for a quick pat. When we stopped at the “mine,” she tried to climb into the waterways used for panning gold and gems.

Ian also wanted to climb into the bodies of water we came across, and also terrified his Nana by wanting to run and jump on the swinging bridge.

Chaco wouldn’t even consider walking across the swinging bridge. She and I took the steady, solid, rock bridge. When we came to the fountain full of coins left in hopes of fulfilled wishes, Ian found some loose stones to throw in the water. We ended up scooting out from that room in the caverns before Ian had a chance to pull the wrong stone out of the wall…

Aunt Joy can always be counted on to take the best pictures of any outing. The problem with this is that she’s rarely in the pictures! I tried to do better about getting some pictures of her on this trip, but photography’s not exactly my strong point. Nor is Ian always the most cooperative of photography subjects.

While we were on this visit, we came upon a family with a little girl 3 months younger than Ian. Ian always gets excited when he sees anyone near his age. His first inclination is to run up and hug the little person (as he did on our last Rock City trip), but sometimes little girls can be a little caustic towards little boys. Ian clearly wanted to wrap his arms around this little girl, but I didn’t know how her parents would react to a strange boy grabbing their daughter. I encouraged Ian to keep his hands to himself, so he sat down, and held his hands in front of him to avoid temptation. Then she moved in a little closer to him. Ian looked over to us to get an idea of how he should/could react. Finally, the little girl reached out and touched him. When her parents raved about how cute, I told Ian he could hug her. With surprising gentleness (for Ian), he gave her a very soft, but arms-all-the-way-around hug. She smiled an adorable little girl smile, then went to pet Chaco, so of course Ian showed off with giving Chaco big hugs and telling Aubree that his dog is “Chaco!” Ladies: he’s not even two and he’s already using his dog to meet women. What will his teenage years be like???

Later, as we neared the park’s exit, Aubree’s family came up on us again. This time she reached out and grabbed Ian’s hand. The two walked out of the gates hand in hand.

We’ve learned a few things about visiting Rock City since our last trip. For example, you get really thirsty hiking. Well, maybe we already knew that, but did you know that you can carry in your own drinks rather than having to purchase their expensive ones (or drink from germy water fountains)? Not only can you take in drinks, but you can also take in snacks. We loaded our bags down this time, and brought in half a water melon! Halfway through our walk, we stopped for a watermelon snack. We also learned that the winery is apparently never open! But they do have the coolest chandeliers hanging above the stand where they sell wine. I think I need one on the deck once we cover and screen it in.

You would think Rock City would be enough adventure for one day, but the day was just too beautiful to not spend as much time as possible outside. When Ian became so tired that he had trouble standing up, or walking like a sober person, we packed up and headed for the jeep. He took a nice nap coming down the mountain, and proved to be a little groggy when we made it to Coolidge Park, but he was happy enough to wake up for Clumpie’s blackberry white chocolate chunk ice cream, then a quick splash in the riverfront’s splash pad.

Surprisingly Ian didn’t sleep much at all on the drive home. The little booger stayed awake until the last 20 minutes babbling away about his day. Chaco, on the other hand, passed out as soon as she climbed on a blanket in the back, and didn’t move until we pulled in the driveway.

Half-way home, I pulled out our dinner –the remainder of the snacks we’d packed for the park. I handed the bag of sliced strawberries back to Ian, thinking he’d grab a handful out of the bag, and I’d finish the rest. The scamp took the whole bag from me, and proceeded to eat every berry, then lick the remaining juice out of the bag!

Ian acted fine when we got home, even splashed around in the tub with great gusto. He sat up and helped Brinn polish off a bowl of popcorn, and drank another cup of almond milk. When this morning came, however, he had no intentions of getting out of bed. If you visit Rock City this spring, watch out of for the Chattanooga Hangover!

Posted in Family, Friends, Ian, My Critters | Tagged Chatanooga, little boys, See Rock City, splashpad, sunshine | Leave a comment

Putting All Our Eggs in More Than One Basket

Posted on 04/21/2014 by ashleekiser

We celebrated Easter week (as opposed to Easter day) this year. It began Tuesday evening with Tabitha stuffing stickers in plastic eggs as per the preschool’s instructions. I probably should have finished stuffing the eggs on Wednesday, but alas, I waited until 7:10 am (Ian and I leave the house at 7:15 am) Thursday morning to frantically start the search for Ian’s adorable basket (a generous gift from Aunt Joy last Easter), and tape shut the 12 plastic eggs. Brinn dropped a pork shoulder in the smoker to slowly cook into delicious barbecue while I dropped Ian at Jacob’s Ladder for school and an egg hunt and took myself to work for eight hours. At 4:30, I fetched Ian and the two of us headed home to… an empty house. It’s a little eerie when not even Mogwai and Chaco are home. Brinn had left for the ranch to pick up the boys. We had Ben, Sam, and Lil with us from Thursday to Saturday night.

Good Friday dawned with beautiful weather, and a houseful of work. My feet hit the ground at 7:45 to throw a turkey in the oven, and they didn’t stop again until 7:45 when all of our guests were gone and Ian crashed for the night. Those hours in between were so busy!

While I was busy in the kitchen, the boys (and this always means Ian now) were busy borrowing some picnic tables from the ranch to accommodate our crowd for the afternoon.With the assistance of all my men, we were able to cobble together a decent cookout until the cavalry arrived. The first wave of cavalry took the form of my family. My grandma, mom, Aunt Wanda (technically she’s my great-aunt), cousin Emily (technically she’s my second or third cousin, or something removed?), and Uncle Nat showed up prepared to set up the beverages. Grandma made her beloved strawberry, orange, pineapple punch. I don’t think I know how to participate in a family event without a cup of this punch in hand. Its absence from a dinner leaves me with the same feeling I experienced in my childhood whenever I missed church on a Sunday morning. The next wave of reinforcements arrived with Albert and Becky. They brought wonderful sides. In fact, while everyone else raved about the potato salad, I was too busy sneaking another spoonful of squash casserole. Albert, are you reading this? If so, I really, really need the recipe for that squash casserole! And Albert also took over the burden of carving the turkey for dinner. Albert and Becky are the parents of the girls’ house at the ranch. God bless amazing parents who can raise a house full of girls, ranging from 8(ish) through teenagers. All those hormones in one home…

Along with “our” ranch boys, the new boys’ house parents came out and brought their boys. This was our first event with all 3 of the ranch homes present! The new boys’ parents, Dusti and Dan, are some of the sweetest, most caring people I’ve ever met. Their youngest son is almost the same age as Ian. Ian was thrilled to have someone his size come over! Additionally, some of my girls from athletics came out to spend the afternoon with the kids. Soccer and women’s basketball both had representatives.

After stuffing ourselves silly, the fun part of the day took over. Egg dying! When each holiday comes around, I get caught up in its festivities and swear that it’s my favorite. But when Easter comes around, I remember that it really is one of my absolute favorites. This all owes to dying Easter eggs. We set up dye stations at each table, and brought out the eggs. Between Brinn and Becky, we had somewhere around 130 eggs to dye! As egg dying completed, we moved on to egg hunting: Ian’s second hunt of the season. There may have been more volunteers to hide than those who wanted to hunt this year. Egg hunting was followed closely by pineapple upside down cake and coffee (for those who drink the foul substance), and lazing around while children of varying ages (1 years to 50 years) through, smashed, and ate eggs, until eventually guests drifted away and left us with just my boys.

We all turned in early for the night as Saturday brought a whole other day worth of adventures. The boys were up and packed well before me, but eventually I staggered out of bed so that we could hit the road and head to the lake. The morning chill was slow to burn off, and the clouds never quite dissipated, but the lake was calm and the fish were biting. We drove out to the marina where my mom keeps her sailboat and spent the entire day on the docks reeling in crappie and catfish. After the drive home, the boys returned to the branch, and Ian, Brinn, and I crashed into bed exhausted once again.

After Saturday’s slight chill, Easter’s warmth was strongly welcomed. This was our third day to struggle out of bed, but eventually we made it up. We had a short debate on attending church, but the beautiful weather beckoned us to experience God out in his creation so we opted to spend our Easter outside after a short car trip which gave us the opportunity to listen to our church’s service on the radio. Before we left the house, Ian and I planted jelly beans in the flower garden. We’d intended to plant them Saturday evening, but were just too flat-out tired. While Brinn strapped Ian in his car seat, and turned the jeep around so Ian was no longer facing the flower beds, I scooped up his beans and planted lollipops in their place. When we returned home, I asked Ian if he thought his jelly beans grew anything. He snapped his head around searching for the flower bed, and all but leaped out of his car seat to run to the bed. When his eyes lit on the sugary growths, he squealed in delight and threw out both arms to “pick” his produce.

Ian splurged and enjoyed one stick of Cracker Barrell’s tutti frutti candy, then got down to the business of looking for his Easter presents. Virginia prepared an adorable felt basket for him with plenty of goodies, and Brinn and I purchased him his first pets of his own. Ian knew there were ducklings and chicks in the backyard, and for days had begged everyone he came across to let him into the converted water trough to gain access to the baby birds within. When we finally took out one duckling and one chick for him to hold, he cradled them against his chest while alternating between “duck!” and “awww…”

So we concluded our Easter with hugging and petting Easter ducks and chickens. We’re happy about the new avian additions to our smallish flock, and invite you over if you’re ever in need of an inner-species snuggle.

Posted in Family, Friends, Gardening, Holidays, Ian, My Critters | Tagged chicks, crappie, ducklings, dye, Easter, eggs, family, fishing, holidays | Leave a comment

Happy birthday, Joy!

Posted on 03/31/2014 by ashleekiser

On this day, an undisclosed number of years ago, my best friend debuted, and the world has never been the same. One day shy of April Fool’s Day, Joy’s birthday is a day worth national recognition.

Many people who know me well understand that the dark side of organized religion left a strong impression on my life during my early teenage years. After my family experienced an ugly church dispute that ended with a beloved minister resigning, we felt lead to leave this particular church, and followed a recommendation to visit a church half an hour away from my hometown. My family visited on a Sunday morning, and the Sunday school teacher for my age group extended an invitation for all of us to attend the Wednesday service. Little did I know at the time that I would owe this man a lifetime of happiness. Wednesday night, my family sat together and this same teacher came back around to say hello. After shaking my parents’ hands, he looked at me, said: “You need a friend” and promptly disappeared. Being an outsider in a new place is never easy, and David Tapp had made his mind up to help me become an insider. David returned five minutes later with Joy, gave her a short introduction, and left her with my family.

The high school Joy spoke softly, when she spoke at all. Despite suffering from painful shyness, Joy stuck out the service by my side, and even made a little small talk. When my family returned for the next Wednesday’s service, Joy dutiful returned to my side, and she did so again and again, until at some point she was no longer that nice girl from Harriman, but instead she was my friend.

Joy and I kept intermittent contact after I left for college, connecting more over summers, but rarely did we speak more than once or twice a month. Then I started planning my wedding… Hold on folks, this gal can plan a wedding like no one else. Now we had a reason to talk every day, sometimes multiple times a day, and Joy quickly took the place in my heart reserved only for the absolute closest of friends. She made wedding planning one of the funnest times of my life, and somewhere in that process she became a member of my family. Both of my parents, my grandmother, my husband, and even Ian all ask “Where’s Joy?” when she’s not able to attend a family function. At times, she even talks to my other family members more than she’s able to talk to me!

If I could go back in time, I would wrap my arms around David Tapp and offer him the biggest hug I could give. I had no idea at the time that this person he brought me would become another one of the guys to hang out with Brinn, a gal for my mom to pal around with, and the best possible Auntie Ian could ever hope for.

Happy birthday, dear friend. We love you!

Posted in Family, Friends, Holidays, Ian | Tagged best friends, birthdays, Joy | Leave a comment

Flirting with Spring

Posted on 03/13/2014 by ashleekiser

If you don’t like the weather in Tennessee, give it 10 minutes… it will change. We’ve experienced some erratic weather this winter, but the nice days are finally starting to outnumber the dreary days. Yesterday and today were both chilly, but earlier this week and the end of last week were beautiful. Brinn and Ian took advantage of the nice weekend to get our garden started.

George Washington strongly advocated for rotational farming. The concept is simple: every year, rotate the location of the crops in your garden. One year we grow tomatoes along the western edge of the garden, and another year we plant them dead center. This helps to avoid depleting the soil in any particular area. Corn, for example, puts a terrible strain on soil’s nutrients, while green beans actually put back into the soil.

The second gardening strategy we work on is soil improvement. While it can vary, the soil of the southeastern region largely contains red clay. Packing, non-porous, hard to grow in red clay. Red clay is a terrible soil to grow in. We’re fortunate that our small piece of property has limited red clay, but it’s still there. We’re constantly working to improve this. Every year we’ve been working large amounts of cow manure into the garden, with all kinds of scraps from the kitchen (egg shells, coffee grounds, trimmings from vegetables, etc.) and peat moss. This has resulted in a rich, dark soil that will hopefully yield a big harvest this year.

So in addition to improving soil quality, and planning where to plant each item, a gardener must also plan when to plant each item. Tennessee is a good region that is conducive for a large variety of plants, but we also have some pretty distinct seasons when it comes to growing. This means that cold weather vegetables simply can’t grown in June and July, nor will warm weather vegetables thrive if you set them out while it’s still cold. But not all cold weather plants can be set out at the same time. Seeds germinating below the ground are protected from killing frosts, yet plants above the ground won’t survive hard frosts or freezing rains. Therefore, we’ve set out a things, but will have many weeks of setting out just a few things at a time.

This year’s farmer’s almanac fore-casted a good deal of wintry weather for March, so we’re hesitant to set out cabbage and broccoli plants too early. But if you put peas or spinach out too late, they won’t come up at all. We’ve decided to split the difference and not set any plants out yet, and only put out seeds. Brinn and Ian tilled just enough soil to plant our 5 items, and left the rest of the garden to minimize soil erosion. He’ll wait and till the rest as we plant it. Ian’s not allowed to touch the tiller, so he drags his plastic golf bag on wheels around the garden as if he’s also tilling.

Ian was allowed to help put seeds out, however, and had a great time playing in the dirt. We now have snow peas, lettuce, spinach, leeks, and onions planted. Next week we’ll set out a few more of those items to extend our harvest time. Before you know it, it’ll be time to get the tomato and pepper plants out!

Posted in Gardening, Ian | Tagged cold weather plants, dirt, gardening, little boys, planting, soil | Leave a comment

Easy there, Ian

Posted on 02/03/2014 by ashleekiser

How convenient is it that Dorothy of http://thedorothychronicles.wordpress.com/, beloved friend from graduate school, experienced pregnancy the same time as I (albeit on different continents), and are raising rambunctious little boys at the same time (same continent now, but different time zones). Since Dottie’s grandmother lives within an hour of me, it makes it fairly easy to get the boys together for playdates when Dottie and A come in for a family visit.

Preschool has put a lot of emphasis on teaching Ian to hug. Now he runs to all people under three feet tall with his arms spread eagle ready to wrap around his “friend” for a hug. His friend may be another child from preschool, a stranger at Rock City, or Baby A. Unfortunately Ian hugs with great enthusiasm, and doesn’t realize what effect his rambunctious hugging has on his friends’ balance. For one, Ian doesn’t particularly care if he goes down with his friend, and two, in the case of A, Ian has two months of age and walking experience on him. For these reasons, Ian frequently took Alex, and often himself, down to the ground. The other problem we encountered with Ian stems from his rough/tough/spoiled/aggressive tendencies, when he decides to shove his friend (A, Chaco, me…etc.) away, which often results in more falling. And to add more insult to injury, Ian still wants to grab… hair, hands, coat sleeves… We obviously have a lot of work to do with Ian’s social skills, and even more to do with his behavior when things don’t work out his way. I understand that toddlers have to learn proper ways to conduct themselves, but whew, sometimes it gets hard to keep up and keep insisting on good behavior. Particularly as I tend to let Ian get away with murder while Brinn has to play the heavy…

So despite some rambunctious hugging, mean pushing, and aggravating grabbing, Ian so did enjoy having a friend his age to play with last Sunday and Friday. He and A spent a good part of Sunday afternoon playing with A’s cool assortment of toys and taking a few turns around A’s great-grandmother’s yard. Then Friday afternoon Dottie and I were able to take the boys to Zaxby’s for a fun lunch (complete with Ian dousing myself and the booth with chocolate milk). From there we browsed around BooksAMillion for a bit, dreaming of all the books we’ll never have quite enough time to read. We ended the day taking the boys to Cane Creek Park to run around (literally RUN) and burn off all of their excess energy.

We had such a wonderful time getting to catch up while the boys played. We tossed around rumors, like this juicy tidbit from Brinn’s cousin Misty: when boys get older, you can actually sit on the bench while they play! Dottie and I both dream of that day. Despite snatches of conversation thrown over the shoulder as we ran down our respective sons before they went rolling through the forest, we were able to share some life updates and plan for future birthdays. After interest in the playground began to wane, we took the boys for a walk around the lake. We encountered what appeared to be the remains of a glitter explosion, lots of sticks and rocks, and vast amounts of giggling and grinning.

Posted in Friends, Ian | Tagged boys will be boys, playground fun | Leave a comment

The Fun Factory

Posted on 02/03/2014 by ashleekiser

I spent some of Friday evening wasting time and scrolling through Facebook, largely ignoring most of the updates and shares, but pausing for photographs until I happened upon an update about someone taking her child to visit the Fun Factory. Now I can’t even remember whose update I read with this location, but it sparked an idea in my head. After a few minutes of searching, I found a Facebook page and a Cookeville location. I learned that the Fun Factory is a giant indoor playland for children, mostly available for birthday parties and so on, but more importantly, they have open play hours! $6 for open play (roughly a 3 hour period) during non-peak hours. Adults play free!

This morning, Ian woke up and quickly decided to be a beast –he’s taking that Super Beast title from his gymnastic class as his fulltime persona. Tia, one of my basketball gals called it immediately: Superbowl hangover. This little boy experienced too much excitement in one evening without enough time to wind down before bed. After wrestling with Ian, who had taken to following us around the house all morning and crying at our feet every time we stopped moving, Brinn finally asked, “What were the hours of that play place again?”

Generally taking Ian outside to play will ensure instant satisfaction and he drops the crying and wining immediately. This magical fix would not be available today, with the near freezing temperatures, rain, and ice. Brinn would have to find some other to pacify a raging toddler.

I headed off to work while Brinn dressed and packed Ian for a morning of play, hoping that the large building would substitute for Ian’s addiction to the great outdoors. On pre-school days, Ian can go play in the giant gymnasium at the church if the weather is bad. Our 1600 square foot house just doesn’t have the same openness that invites running and horseplay, not that he doesn’t run around and scream at home anyway.

Brinn started sending me pictures almost immediately after arriving at the Fun Factory. It didn’t take Ian anytime at all to decide that he fully approves of this establishment. First he ran to a three-wheeler to wheel himself around. Ian discovered a tricycle at Brian’s (one of Brinn’s good friends) house Saturday evening. Brian’s little boy brought out his tricycle and bicycle out for Ian to play with while we were out for a visit. Ian couldn’t coordinate his feet to peddle, but he did understand that these toys would eventually provide him with mobility and he wants to know how. After that visit to Brian’s, Ian is obsessed with two and three-wheeled toys. After a short while walking himself forward on the three-wheeler, he jumped over to the Flinstone-esque car and took himself for a spin.

While Ian can exercise diligence and attentiveness to one idea when he becomes fascinated with a project he largely jumps from task to task or toy to toy like a squirrel on caffeine. So it didn’t take him long to start exploring everything else the factory had to offer, including large cushioned jungle gym type structures for him to climb through and over. Ian also discovered the ball pit early in his adventure.

It didn’t take long before Ian was jumping into the balls. I guess he’s not much for dipping his toe in the pool. He does tend to be an all or nothing type kid.

Posted in Ian | Tagged ball pit, Ian, indoor play, The Fun Factory | Leave a comment

The Little Gym

Posted on 01/24/2014 by ashleekiser

Ian and his Nana began a new routine a few weeks ago. Now she takes him to a gymnastic class every Wednesday morning. I was able to attend his first lesson, and Brinn his most recent, but otherwise it’s Nana and Ian time.

Several people have expressed confusion when I share that Ian’s taking gymnastics. “What? But he’s like only 1. Can he really do gymnastics?” Yes, he’s only 20 months old, and yes and no. He can really do some gymnastics.

We were referred to the Little Gym by a friend who has a little boy the same age as Ian. She convinced us by sharing how much fun Leon has during his gym time. When I discussed it with Ian’s Nana, she decided that she and Grandma (my grandmother) wanted to put Ian in gymnastics as his Christmas present.

The Little Gym has a great program that caters well to the short attention span and limited mobility of toddlers. They begin each class with a fun warmup complete with music. From there, the children can play on the equipment (with parental assistance) for a short while, then students join the teacher for the “lesson.” Sometimes this involves doing forward rolls, walking the balance beam, crawling through a tunnel, etc. Then they proceed on to ball time. The teacher pulls out a large upright bin full of large bouncy balls and scatters them out through the warmup area. After balls, it’s back to playing on the equipment, then on to wrap up with bubble time. The teacher pulls a small balance beam onto the warmup mat, and stands on it to blow bubbles for the kids to chase and squish. As the children leave the lesson, the gym managers give each child a hand stamp (or 4 hand stamps and 2 feet stamps in Ian’s case).

Ian’s not performing roundoffs into back hand springs, or jumping into squat throughs on the vault, but he is learning important skills that are already helping his development. Ian’s a reluctant talker so far, but when he’s at a lesson, he screams “BALL!” when he notices the teacher move towards the closet where balls are stored. Physically, he’s developed more coordination as he’s learned to hang from the bar and walk across the beam. Ian’s teacher has actually recommended that we no longer hold his hands when we help him walk up stairs or climb on rocks. She explained that his balance is already fairly developed, but everyone can always become more balanced. She suggests holding him by the elbow instead so that he has to work a bit harder.

Another area of improvement we’ve noticed is with socialization. Ian’s finally entered the age of “stranger danger.” He doesn’t like for either of his parents to leave him behind, and he refuses to let a new person pick him up. In his first lesson, he was very reluctant to go to the instructor, or the managers of the gym. By the end of the lesson, he was running up to his teacher, and begging the manager for extra handstamps. And on top of all that, it’s just flat-out fun to see his face light up and hear him chatter and squeal in delight as he learns a new skill or masters a new feat.

Posted in Family, Ian | Tagged gymnastics, Ian, Nana | Leave a comment

ICE!

Posted on 01/23/2014 by ashleekiser

In December, Joy and I got together to take Ian to Nashville for his first visit to Ice. Joy lives for these types of outings. This was actually her second trip last year to Opryland for the ice exhibit.

We began by suiting up in the heavy blue jackets provided with a ticket purchase. Ian expressed some skepticism over having a second heavy coat fastened around his first. With his lined pants, two sweaters, and two coats, Ian found movement extremely limited. In his case, this is a very, very good thing.

Joy always documents her outings, which I owe her big for! I’m totally stealing all of her pictures for this post.

While the slide started well enough, Ian’s abundance of layers prevented him from reaching out to balance himself, or stop his momentum, so at the bottom, he ended up toppling face first.

Ian’s topple brought on the rare occasion of Ian requesting to be carried. He’s too busy with too much independence to have time for mom’s hugs and snuggles anymore, but every now and then he’ll ask to be held and snuggle in close.

After our icey adventure, we ended our day with dinner at our mutually favored establishment: Logan’s. Joy and I love the wings and skins; Ian loves the dinner rolls. Comfortable ending to an exciting day.

Posted in Friends, Holidays, Ian | Tagged ICE, Joy | Leave a comment

See Rock City

Posted on 01/17/2014 by ashleekiser

Growing up in East TN, I frequently encountered barns painted with the iconic Rock City sign across their roofs. While the signs were a familiar presence, I never actually visited Rock City as a child. It wasn’t until my late twenties that my mom took me for the first time. If you haven’t been, I highly recommend it. Miles of stone lined paths through some of the most beautiful gardens the Tennessee Valley has to offer, light displays at Christmas, Mother Goose’s Village inside the Caves, and you can see 7 states all at once from the look-out point.

Last October, Joy and I wanted to take Ian out to experience autumn to the fullest. We decided that Rock City would be a fun place. We had no idea how well it would really go over, though. All of the paths have stacked stones on either side, creating a barrier to contain toddlers to the path. Rock City is also a very dog friendly park, and allows your four-legged children to partake in the fun, so long as they stay on a leash. We would have had fun had it just been us girls, but Ian’s delight with the park pushed this venture up to being one of the most fun of my life. We chose to take a Wednesday off of work when the park wouldn’t be as crowded. For once, I was able to take a toddler to a public place where he could squeal and run without disturbing others or risk injury. As I only had the one prior visit to reflect on, we chose to only take one dog this time to see how it would go having Ian and Mogwai together in a public setting. (Chaco has since received her own special treatment to atone for her abandonment on this day.)

Mogwai wasn’t a fan of the swinging bridges, while Ian enjoyed them entirely too well. This was the one encounter of the day that made me too nervous to turn him loose.

My mom and I took turns wrangling the child and the dog. Mogwai was on his best behavior, despite the abundant squirrels tormenting him.

Rock City has stairs at every turn. In my previous, non-maternal life, I groaned with dread when faced with more stairs. Now, however, I eagerly anticipate the quiet evening I will have as Ian sleeps soundly from stair climbing exhaustion. Stair climbing continues to be one of Ian’s favorite activities.

The rainbow hall windows could now use a good dose of windex to remove all the smudges and finger prints we left behind.

The caves and caverns throughout the park provided a cool relief from the sweat we worked up climbing the many stairs.

This was about the time that Ian started to tire and needed a lift for a while. Have I mentioned how heavy he’s getting? Actually he’s still a fly weight, coming in under 30 pounds, but after 15 minutes of hiking, he started feeling more like a 50 pound sack of grain.

At one point on the trail, we encountered one of those painted plywood props that you stick your head through for a funny picture. We thought it would be funny to stick Mog and Ian’s heads through. We could get Mog’s head through, or Ian’s, but we just couldn’t seem to get them both to cooperate at the same time. When Mogwai would stick his head through the hole, Ian was too busy cracking up to remember to hold his on head through his hole.

Finally, after plenty of strenuous hefting of child and dog, wrestling, and a little shoving, we managed to get both of them to cooperate at the same time!

As much fun as Ian and I had through the day with his Nana, the absolute best part of the day was that Joy and I finally had a day we got to spend together! We’ve already made plans to purchase season tickets soon to repeat this fantastic trip frequently.

Posted in Family, Friends, Ian, My Critters | Tagged autumn, fall fun, Rock City | Leave a comment

Hello 2014… Hello winter!

Posted on 01/08/2014 by ashleekiser

2014 kind of sneaked in on me. 2013 ended amidst head colds and RSV, which left the Kisers a bit frazzled and stretching ourselves to make it to the holidays. I can’t believe I haven’t chronicled any goings-on since early fall! I’ll do my best to catch up on those at a later date.

As 2014 snuck in amongst mild temps and ideal hiking weather, a polar vortex planned its sneaky path to Tennessee. Sunday started pleasantly. So pleasantly, in fact, that we enjoyed a nice morning at Cracker Barrel, then took our time browsing around Tractor Supply That morning. By Sunday evening, however, the temps were dropping and the snow was falling.

Ian’s always been an active little boy with a strong desire to play outside, but the short amount of daylight hours has really exacerbated his patience with the indoors. We try to take him out as much as possible on the pleasant days, but on the eastern edge of a time zone leaves us in the dark around 4:45 pm. Ian’s not a fan. To make up for his time spent outside, he’s taken to prowling the house. No where is safe! As a direct result, Brinn and I have spent the winter building and installing shelves high out of little hands’ reach. While working on shelving in our bedroom (because no room is safe), Brinn absent mindedly handed Ian his carpenter pencil after marking off where to hang the shelf. We left the room briefly to retrieve the next shelf, and returned to Ian’s artistic decoration for our wall.

I loved to write on the walls as a child. My dad’s walls are still covered with “Ashlee Renee” in many places I don’t even remember writing it! Perhaps this is why I just don’t get overly upset with Ian drawing on the walls. Since we have plans to repaint our bedroom walls (stayed tuned for 2014 home improvements!), and Missy gave Ian a pack of jumbo Crayola for Christmas, he and I decided to take advantage of the inclement weather to add some color to his pencil sketch.

And as we colored the winds blew, the snow fell, and all water and moisture near and on any roads froze solid. Driving conditions became deplorable, and feeding the livestock wasn’t much better. Our temps dipped into the single digits, then into the negatives. Our barn building has been a slow work in progress, but we still haven’t had a chance to get a structure that will offer protection for the horses. Since we only have the run-in shed for them, I layered the girls, and the donkey, up with multiple layers of medium and heavy weight turnout rugs, gave them an entire round bale of hay to munch on, and dropped a water trough heater into their tank to keep their water warm. To reduce risk of colic we spread feeding out over 3 periods rather than the normal two. Brinn set his chicken coop up with two heat lamps. Imagine my surprise Monday morning when I walked out to find two mares and a donkey leaning against the chicken coop to share the warmth from the heating lamps!

Ian hated being left behind as Brinn and I took turns with the livestock. We decided to take him outside for 5 minute sessions anytime that the temperature made it into the positives. Cold as it may be, this little boy would jump up and run to the door every time we asked if he wanted to go outside.

Brinn and Ian spent today with several of the boys from the ranch. First, Ian watched the boys sled on the quickly disappearing snow.

Then he ran around their big open house for a while.

And finally Ian brought his big brothers home with him and watched them monkey around on our very small, very shallow frozen pond.

Stay warm!

Posted in Family, Ian, My Critters | Tagged cold weather, polar vortex, winter | Leave a comment