my traveling companion

This father's day weekend Nolan and I took off to Tennessee for the weekend while John got to ride his motorcycle in the upper parts of Wisconsin. It was planned that way basically because John couldn't find many weekends that he and his friends could go riding, and I needed to be in Tennessee to meet a friend's new baby. It worked it well for many reasons. We got to be at Nolan's Great Uncle Edwin's birthday party and I got to be around for father's day for the first time in ages. Nolan was an easy traveling companion, he could have only been better if he had helped carry the bags. We arrived just in time for Uncle Ed's birthday party and Nolan was a good little entertainer and wolfed down a lot of food. I guess fancy Italian restaurants are his choice pick, but then he proceeded to stink up the place with the first poop in his diaper in a while. I don't mean to keep the blog so poop centered, but it's a big deal in his life right now. It's difficult to potty train while traveling, especially since he is still afraid of all public toilets. (Or stubborn about not using them perhaps.) He had to poop on the flight back later, thank goodness on the descent into Milwaukee, but he was so upset about it that he demanded to lay down until it was time to get off the plane! Finally he at least finds it uncomfortable to have poop in his diaper!


Uncle Edwin and my cousin Britt, who I guess is Nolan's first cousin once removed?





Nolan got a lot of love and new toy cars on this trip. He got this special VW bus from his grandparents and he showed it off well for the camera. He thinks it's Filmore from the movie Cars. That was almost the only animated feature he had seen (also he's seen Yellow Submarine) until this weekend. My parents tried to find enough activities to keep Nolan out of the 90+ degree heat and out of the chigger infested grass. So Nolan got to watch Dumbo and loved it! We actually fast forwarded through the part where the mama elephant gets mad and taken away... too much even for me to watch. We wondered how Disney got away with the pink elephants sequence as Nolan was totally engrossed talking about the trippy images like the belly dancing elephant that turned into a ball that turned into one eye...

As we pulled into our street, Nolan said he wanted to go back to Grandma and Grandpa's house. Me, too!