18 Years

Did you think I was done with this blog site?  So did I!  It turns out that I’m feeling a bit nostalgic today, on Spencer’s 18^th birthday.  I spent some time this morning going through the old blog posts and reminiscing about small Spencer, parenting, and life in general over the past 18 years.  And thinking in cliches like ‘Time flies!’ and ‘They grow up so fast!’.

It seems fitting that my last blog post was about Spencer starting kindergarten.  A lot of life has happened since November 2011.  And in the process of life happening, Spencer grew up.

It would be way too much effort, and way too boring, for me to outline every milestone, achievement, and challenge that Spencer and we as a family have experienced over the past 13 years.  So, I’ll focus on the ‘where is Spencer now’.  Literally, Spencer is spending his 18^th birthday with his dad on a beach in Mexico.  Lucky kid.  In the other sense of ‘where’, Spencer is in his senior year at Chamblee High School.  Not excelling but managing to get through to graduation.  And I’ll leave it at that.

I am so proud of the person that Spencer has become.  My favorite things about Spencer are that he is genuine, kind, thoughtful, loves animals, respectful, not materialistic, has positive self-esteem and is generally comfortable in his own skin.  He has almost never been affected by peer pressure and is comfortable doing his own thing, even if it’s not what everyone else is doing/wearing/saying/etc.  I have always been grateful that Spencer did not inherit my shyness, which was debilitating for me as a child. Of course Spencer has his challenges…but don’t we all?

Spencer has been accepted to Kennesaw State University and plans to start there in the fall.  He’s going to try living in the dorm and see how that goes.  KSU has a great video game design program, which is what Spencer wants to do, so this is an exciting opportunity for him.  It’s going to be a huge transition, and I’ll be there to support and encourage him the best I can.  I know he’s legally an adult now, but I’ll never stop being his mom.

A few other things about Spencer: he loves hats (not ball caps, but many other types of hats), he’s into movies and video games, he hates organized school events (like dances…no prom for this senior!), he’s not athletic (although he does like to do the occasional short hike), he’s around 6’2” tall (taller than his dad), and he likes to play bartender (don’t judge…the kids in Madmen were mixing their parents drinks when they were 10!).  He has been in private piano lessons since around 6 years of age and is a pretty good player.  Farewell and Sealed Vessel, piano recital December 3, 2022 Up until last year, he also played the clarinet in band (one year he even played bass clarinet).  Spencer is looking forward to traveling internationally (he loved visiting Ireland last summer) with the Iberian Peninsula toward the top of the list.  Perhaps I’ll do some of that future traveling with him.

And that concludes my final blog post.

I love you, Spencer Aaron!  Happy 18^th birthday!

Kindergarten!

Well, this isn't the longest gap of time since I have posted...but it certainly has been a while.

Anyway... Spencer started kindergarten at our local public school, Idlewood Elementary in August. It has been a busy few months of school. We have had 2 field trips, a kindergarten class performance, a book fair, a book character costume parade, a pajama day, a fall festival, a PTA meeting, and I'm sure other things I'm not remembering. Spencer is enjoying school and has a fantastic teacher.  A lot of what he is doing in kindergarten is review from last year (kudos to his preK teacher!), and he is now doing 'advanced' homework that his kindergarten teacher sends home for a few kids in the class who are beyond the current material. He is also already at the reading level that they want the kindergarteners to be at by the end of the year. Yes, I am bragging but I figure that's my right as a parent :-) (And I try not to do it too much or too often.) On the less brag-worthy side of things there have been a few behavioral incidents (the most recent was because he was not listening and was laughing at the teacher when she asked him to do something or reprimanded him...that resulted in the teacher actually walking him to the car at after school pick up so she could talk to my mother-in-law about Spencer's behavior).

Spencer dressed up as his favorite book character, Jack from the Magic Tree House books, with his teacher at the book character parade

We walk to school every morning. Between Fred and I (and once our neighbor when we went out of town) Spencer has been walked to school every single day of school so far this year. I love that we live so close that we can walk. We started out walking with 3 other neighborhood families, but families slowly started to drop out of our walking group. We now walk regularly with one other mom and her son, though several mornings it has just been Spencer and I. I hope to keep up our walking streak throughout the winter...except in the case of rain (I'm not quite that hard core).

 Overall we have been really happy with Spencer's school. It's a large elementary school with ~900 students (~120 in kindergarten). It is a Title I school, which means over 60% of the students qualify for free or reduced price lunch and therefore the school qualifies for special assistance and takes part in special programs aimed at ensuring 'that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging state academic achievement standards and state academic assessments'. So, basically it's a low income school. It is ethnically (though not necessarily racially) diverse with students from various countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. There is a high percentage of families that don't speak English, which is one of the school's biggest challenges (especially since there is not a common non-English language spoken by families). Spencer is the only white kid in his class (and one of 5 white kids in kindergarten). I love it, and he hasn't noticed :-) Many of the more affluent families in our neighborhood take their kids to other schools, usually schools in wealthier areas north of our community. There are so many benefits of going to our neighborhood school. I'm so glad we decided to give Idlewood a chance.

Oh, I almost forgot...Spencer also lost his first tooth! It happened so fast...I was brushing his teeth on Sunday night and it was very loose (so loose that it alarmed me! I wasn't expecting it) and the next day it fell out while he was eating lunch at school. They sent it home with a cute little certificate and the tooth fairy left him 4 quarters.

Not a bicycle riding prodigy

A few weeks ago a friend/classmate of Spencer's (we'll call him 'T') told his mom he wanted to do bicycle riding as his sport. So T's mom organized a series of bike riding playdates with friends at a local middle school track.

We were the first to arrive at one of the playdates. We got Spencer's little kid bike (with training wheels) out of the car. We fastened his Cars themed helmet, and away he went down the track. V e r y s l o w l y. There was just enough light breeze to keep him from making forward progress. But it was a flat, smooth surface so with a little coaxing and pushing now and then he made it around the track in nothing near record time. But he made it.

Then Spencer's friend T arrives. It took me a moment to recognize T, since from a distance all I saw were 2 adult bicycles. I was wondering where T's bike was. As they approached, I realized T was actually on one of the adult sized bicycles. Now, mind you, T is a little guy. A few inches and a few months behind Spencer. But T came flying around the track on his bicycle, no training wheels, real helment (sans cartoon characters), and flew around the track in near record speed. T's mom saw the look on my face as I watched her bicycle riding prodigy ride laps around poor Spencer, pedaling his heart out trying to go forward against the light breeze, looking so...young...compared to his peer. She helpfully offered that T's older cousins do a lot of bike riding and T had spent time with them and learned from them. I'm not sure if that made me feel any better.

Spencer was done after 1.5 laps, and quickly got distracted by a dog. We'll be at the next bicycle riding playdate...I'm hoping that eventually some of T's bicycle riding enthusiasm and skills will rub off on Spencer.

The Socks

When Spencer is tired he becomes overly sensitive, melodramatic and emotional.

Tonight he decided he wanted to wear his plush Toy Story slippers to bed instead of socks. I said that was fine and put his socks on the dresser. So he gets into bed and I start reading him a story. A few paragraphs into the story he gets very sad and starts to cry. So I ask him why he's crying.

Me: Spencer, why are you crying?
S: I miss my socks!
Me (laughing a little bit): You mean the socks over on your dresser? But you said you wanted to wear your slippers to bed.
S, more sad: I know but I miss them!

I start laughing harder, then...

S: I miss the bottoms!
Me: You miss the bottoms of your socks!?
S: Yes! I miss the bottoms of my socks! They have that sweet little word on them! (He's sad and crying in earnest as he says this...I mean he really misses the bottoms of his socks with the 'sweet little word'!)

I'm laughing really hard, and he is upset that I'm laughing but can't help but laugh so he's laughing and crying at the same time.

I get up and get the socks. I bring them to him. The word on the bottom is 'Hanes'. He points out the 'sweet' word that he missed so much and swaps his slippers for his socks.

Maybe I shouldn't laugh at these sentimental outbursts. I know he's sensitive, and he was just really tired. But seriously, how can 'I miss the sweet word on the bottom of my socks' not crack me up?

Halloween 2010

Another Halloween, come and gone. It seemed like an entire weekend of festivities, starting with his school party on Friday and ending in an evening of trick-or-treating on Sunday. He had a great time at his school party...they had a pinata, a costume parade, crafts, and broom races (his favorite thing though was poking other kids with his plush pterodactyl head). He was all smiles all day long.
On Saturday morning we bought pumpkins, and after having brunch with a few friends we got to the business of carving. Spencer wouldn't clean out his pumpkin...he said it was too 'slurmy' (his word for slimy/gooey/slushy/etc). Which is weird, because he loves mud, dirt, worms, bugs, etc. Oh well. I think he pulled out 2 seeds and I did the rest. He did however draw the face on his pumpkin this year. He did a pretty good job, too! I let him help with the carving a little (no, he was not using that huge knife...just the small, nearly harmless carving tool).For trick-or-treating we met up with several neighbors as we have in years past and went through the neighborhood as a group. It's a lot of fun for the kids and the adults. Spencer and a little 4-year old girl from down the street (in an amazing Dorothy outfit...she had sparkly red shoes and Toto in a basket) were the stragglers, but they were ok with that. I enjoyed listening to their 4-year old chit chat as they walked down the streets with candy buckets in one hand and holding hands with the other. And a few pictures from our annual trip to one of the area corn maze/fall fun farms. We went with some friends to a really fun place called Corn Dawgs. This particular place had a tunnel slide going through a large hill. At first Spencer was hesitant, but after the first time going down by himself he turned into a sliding maniac and wouldn't stop! He must have gone up and down that slide about 15 or 20 times on his own. He just kept sliding down then running back up the hill to do it again...it was exhausting just watching him.

The beach

Earlier this month we spent a week at Topsail Island, NC. We stayed in a beautiful house on the beach with 2 other families. My 13-year old niece was able to come out from Colorado to join us. Spencer did well on the 8-hour drive there (our new portable DVD player definitely helped...at home we still limit TV, but on an 8-hour car trip anything goes). The house had a kids room with 2 sets of bunk beds, and Spencer surprisingly chose a top bunk. I was a little concerned since it was his first experience sleeping on a top bunk, but he loved it and maneuvered up and down the ladder with no problems.

He slept moderately well, though toward the end of the trip was tired and cranky and asking to go home. (Historically he hasn't slept well at all on these types of trips.) Of course, now that we're home, he keeps talking about the beach house and how he wants to go back. He's decided it's too long of a drive though so we'll fly next time. I told him the other day that there are new families taking their turn at the beach house and we don't know them, so he said we need to have a 'meeting' with them so we can know them and stay at the beach house with them.

We arrived at the beach Saturday evening and of course the kids (Spencer, my niece and our friends 4-year old son) went right in the water, clothes and all. Sunday was a beautiful day and we spent a lot of time at the beach. Monday I woke up with a sore throat and headache. By Monday evening I had severe chills and felt like my throat and head were on fire. It pretty much sucked. I was sick for several days, and wasn't truly well for the rest of our time at the beach. Spencer checked on me often, asking in a very soft voice 'Do you feel better, mommy?'. It was very sweet. With the help of ibuprofen I managed to rejoin vacation on Thursday. On Friday we visited the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Hospital which was very cool. It's a really great place and they do great work for the sea turtles. If you ever make it to Topsail Island (which I recommend) you should definitely check out the sea turtle hospital.

I heard that Spencer's favorite beach game was 'sneak attack'. I didn't really see this since I missed so much beach time. But apparently Fred and Spencer would stand or sit in the surf and wait for a wave. Once in a while a larger wave would come over them when they weren't expecting it: sneak attack! Spencer still talks about 'sneak attack'. He loved the wildlife...we saw dolphins several times, pelicans, and different species of sand/beach birds (which he loved chasing). One evening we spent half an hour following a crab down the beach. It would disappear in the surf and we'd see it's eyes poking out of the water. And of course we came home with quite an assortment of (mostly broken) seashells that Spencer collected.

I think everyone else had a great vacation and no one seemed to catch my illness (I am very proud of my infection control measures!).

Our beach house, the Lucky Leaf

Blah blah blog

I was contemplating discontinuing my Spencer blog. I'm not a very good blogger, I don't update in a timely manner, and am not sure anyone would miss it. But then I heard from a few folks who do actually read it (in addition to the 2 or 3 people who I know read it because they leave nice comments :-) And I went back through old posts and realized what a gold mine of memories I have in this blog. Things that I had forgotten about. Things that didn't make it into the baby book (I'm even worse at updating Spencer's baby book than I am at updating this blog site!). I may even print off the blog pages and put them into a binder or something, just in case the Internet disappears or eats my blog site.

Blogging is a fascinating thing to me. It amazes me that some people are so good at it that they make a living. Many of my friends blogs are very well written, funny, interesting...I enjoy them immensely. These are my regular, favorite blogs (in no particular order):

http://motherloadshow.blogspot.com/

http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/

http://www.machilli.blogspot.com/

http://www.sforsting.blogspot.com/

http://ilpiattoblu.blogspot.com/

http://herbadmother.com/ (see also http://blog.beliefnet.com/theirbadmother/)

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

http://katie-adventures.blogspot.com/

So, I have decided to keep this blog alive, probably at the same pace and level as it has been. Stay tuned for some summer beach stories and updates!

Random

Seems like we are always busy doing something random. Our past month consisted of out of town guests (hooray!) which included a trip to the aquarium, Spencer's first rodeo out in Shady Dale, GA, lots of swimming in lakes and pools, bbqs and playdates, and unfortunately the not at all fun visit to the dentist to have 5 cavities filled (which I won't go into details about because it was not fun. Suffice it to say he had to be consciously sedated which was really hard for all of us. But, he's fine and his teeth are all fixed! And best of all he really doesn't remember it, so won't be terrified the next time we take him to the dentist).

Spencer also finished another year of preschool. It seemed like more of a behavioral challenge for him this year. He had a difficult time listening to the teachers and had some problems with temper tantrums. His teachers actually started a behavior chart for him, which seemed to help sometimes. I don't know what was going on...was it him? was it the teachers? was it us?...but I'm kind of glad the school year is over. We'll see how he does in summer camp and with his new teachers next year. I'm also feeling thankful that he didn't get into public elementary pre-k next year which would have been a bigger class and more time at school. Maybe we need another year to prepare him for that after all.
Spencer loved having houseguests. He and 2-year old C were immediately friends...despite the episodes of bickering (the best was when they were both trying to name Spencer's teddy bear; Spencer said his name was Gobble, but C insisted he was 'teddy bear' and it went round like that with escalating shrilly voices for a few minutes. C's mom and I kept trying to convince them they were BOTH right...and besides, who CARES?!). When our friends left Spencer asked if I had remembered to get their address for our 'electronic map' (GPS) so that we could go visit them.
And a sort of related, funny story about company...Spencer asked me about a tag on a shirt and I told him it said 'Fruit of the Loom', the name of the company who made the shirt. A few seconds later he started asking about our friends who had stayed with us, and if his friend made the shirt. I finally realized what he was asking, and after I stopped laughing I explained to him the different meanings of the word 'company', and that no, his friend C did not make his t-shirt.

Spencer enjoyed his first ever rodeo experience. He loves animals and was thrilled to be able to get so close to the steers and calves. I'm not sure he knew what to think of saddle bronc riding (but then, who does?). He loved the ponies at the pony ride, but it took him a while to actually get on one. Which is strange considering he hops right on my mom's full grown horse.
We can't keep him out of the water this year. If we are near water, he wants to be in it. This includes lakes, streams, swimming pools, and backyard sprinklers. But there are definitely worse ways to spend the summer in Atlanta!

Mother's Day Camping Adventure

We headed to Red Top Mountain State Park on Lake Allatoona after work Friday for our second family camping trip. The park is about 50 miles north of Atlanta. We were a bit worried about Friday afternoon traffic, and it wasn't pretty but wasn't as bad as we had anticipated. It took us about 1.5 hours to get to the park. It is a huge park with over 90 campsites but they have it well organized into tent areas, pop-up/camper areas, and RV areas. The sites were large, well-maintained and level. We had a great site in the woods not too far from the lake. The weather was great; it was very warm Friday night, beautiful but cooler on Saturday, downright chilly Saturday night (but fortunately I had brought a warm set of PJs and fleece slippers for Spencer) and cold enough that we didn't want to get out of the tent Sunday morning. But we did, and immediately warmed ourselves with fire, hot coffee and sweet potato pancakes...it was lovely. Spencer had a great time. He likes sleeping in the tent and loved helping us collect wood and tend the fire.

Friday night there was a family with a 3-year old girl camped next to us, and they ran up and down the hill together between our campsites and played until bedtime. Saturday we spent some time fishing and found a very small beach area. I let Spencer wade into the water, which turned into squatting in the water to play (and thus getting his behind soaked) and finally he just went in the water. He was so excited and was having so much fun I could hardly protest. Another 4-year old girl came and they played together for a while. Finally it was time to head back to camp, so I had to borrow Fred's t-shirt to change Spencer into for the short walk back. Back at camp Spencer and I took a nice nap in the hammock.

Saturday evening Spencer found a small troop of young boys 2 campsites over. He joined them in running through the woods with flashlights and drinking cocoa...I think it took the boys' families a while before they realized they had acquired a 4th little boy. Sunday morning the boys resumed their traipsing through the woods, climbing rocks, falling into streams, and other wilderness adventures while we leisurely had breakfast and packed to head home.

After we got home and unpacked I realized how absolutely exhausted we all were. Spencer and I took a wonderful 2-3 hour nap (mine was 2 his was 3). Now we'll see if he goes to sleep tonight! Anyway, it was worth it because he was a whiny mess when we got home.

This was the best Mother's Day I've had so far!

Soccer!

This is Dad's first post. I'm just not much of a blogger, but I am pretty excited about today.

You've probably read about our adventures with t-ball. Turns out that soccer is much more Spencer's thing. We joined Tucker Youth Soccer Association (TYSA) and Spencer got a jersey and a new soccer ball.

We were really afraid we'd have a repeat of t-ball, but Spencer jumped right after the ball. He followed all.... errr... most of the coach's instructions. The coach was very good at getting over a dozen kids to do the same thing at once. Not easy with a bunch of 4 yr olds.

Spencer did a great job dribbling, passing and shooting goals. I think he really liked scoring goals because I told him he could run around like an airplane screaming "GOOOOOAAAALLLL!" every time. He also did great getting involved with his team. I think it helped that a kid from his pre-school was there. Spencer never picked the ball up with his hands. Yeah!

Go TINY TYKES!

Holiday Summary

Spencer's third holiday season has come and gone. This was a fun season, since he understood (and believed in) Santa Claus and the reindeer and the elves. He also sleeps better now when we travel, so our Thanksgiving trip to Austin, TX to visit Aunt A and Uncle R was very enjoyable.

Here's a summary of Spencer's holiday activities:

During out Thanskgiving trip to Austin we rode on the 'duck boat'. The duck boat does a tour of the city then a tour of Lake Austin. Spencer insisted on wearing his life jacket on the bus/boat (even though no one else was...our safety conscious child!). While in the lake the driver was allowing young children to 'drive' the boat. Spencer refused for several minutes, then all of a sudden he got up and went to drive the boat. I was amazed, until he got back to his seat and I saw Fred giving him the M&M's that he had bribed him with. Spencer also had his first root beer float...good times.







































At school the teachers decided to do a program with the 3-year old classes for the first time. They called it 'cookies and carols'. It was adorable. He's still occasionally belting out Jingle Bells and Rudolph.



Christmas was spent at home. Spencer missed the annual picture on Santa's lap because he decided when it was our turn that he didn't want to. Of course as soon as I stepped out of line with him he changed his mind...no sir, that was the end of that and we had to drag him away kicking and screaming. So instead, Spencer dictated a letter to Santa, which Fred wrote for him. He also left out cookies and milk and carrots on the hearth, and was extremely delighted to see that they were gone the next morning. Christmas morning was very fun...he really enjoyed his gifts from Santa, and all the great gifts from family. (And yes, Santa brought him a farm set.)


I don't think Spencer even noticed New Years.

I wish there were more kids Spencer's age in the family. There are few cousins his age. For holidays there are really no kids for him to play with; no kids table. I'm sure he doesn't notice, but I do. We'll have to start making more of an effort to get together with the bit of family that has young kids. Maybe next year...

Happy fall to all!

We've had a busy fall season. We started with a trip to Washington Farms in Watkinsville, GA www.washingtonfarms.net. This is the same place we went last year. They have a pumpkin patch, hay ride, corn maze, and other fun kid activities. We went with a few friends and had a great time. This is definitely becoming a great tradition.We had many Halloween related activities this year. The weekend before Halloween we went to the zoo for their annual Boo at the Zoo event. They set up trick-or-treat stations around the zoo, so the kids gather candy as they are running around looking at the animals. Spencer was a cowboy...at least that's how he started out (this was the first year that he actually picked his costume. I think the idea came from Curious George). Little by little his costume starting sliding around and just got in the way, so by the time we made it around the zoo I was carrying the costume. Lesson learned...for trick-or-treating there were many safety pins involved in keeping the costume in place.














On Halloween day we went to a friend's annual Halloween party, them met up with some neighborhood families to go trick-or-treating. The weather was iffy (lots of rain throughout the day) but we caught a good window between rain. Unfortunately we had very few trick-or-treaters with the cold, rainy weather.

Last Friday Fred and I played hookie from work and took Spencer to the N GA mountains to ride the Blue Ridge Scenic railroard www.brscenic.com. It was a gorgeous fall day in the mountains and we had a great time (except when we hit Atlanta traffic on the way home...definitely not fun). The train ride lasts about 2 hours round trip, with a 2 hour stop in a scenic little mountain town on the GA/TN border. We didn't get to ride in the engine, but Spencer did get to help the conductor punch our tickets.

This weekend we had gorgeous weather, so we spent some time raking leaves in the backyard. And of course, as a result we had to get the obligatory 'kid in pile of leaves' picture.

Southern boy

Spencer has developed a southern accent. 'Bath' has become 'bay-ath', there is 'they-er', that is now 'thay-at'...and so on. We're not exactly sure where it came from. Obviously not from us, not from Nanny or PopPop (who are New Yorkers), and he doesn't spend enough time with my family to have picked it up from them. I thought maybe it was his teachers, but neither of them have accents. So it must be a friend from school...maybe he's trying to impress someone.

There is a little girl at school that he seems to like a lot. They were in the same class last year. This year they are in the same 'grade' but different classes. Apparently though when the kids are lined up waiting to go outside Spencer wants to line up with this little girl rather than stay with his class like he's supposed to. This has gotten him into a bit of trouble several times and we've had to talk to him about how he needs to resist her wiley ways and listen to his teachers. Who knew this behavior started so early?

We went to Fernbank Museum for the first time yesterday, so Spencer got to see his first real dinosaur skeletons. It was great fun. We bought him a new triceratops from the gift store, which he named 'Dargamel' (Fred actually suggested 'Gargamel' but Spencer misheard him). Unfortunately Dargamel and all of Spencer's other dinosaurs were all chewed up when we got home today (stupid dog...ok, ok, stupid people for leaving toys where the dog could get them). He was so upset (our sensitive little boy) that Fred wanted to go right to the store to get him some more dinosaurs. We definitely have to go dinosaur shopping soon.Spencer doesn't regularly nap during the week (I can usually get him to nap on weekends if I try). But when he's tired, he's tired! These pictures just crack me up!

Spencer goes camping!

A few months ago Spencer started asking about going camping. We would play camp in the house, with blankets and a flashlight. He would pretend to roast marshmallows by holding animal cookies in front of his flashlight. So, I bought a new tent and we contemplated the best way to camp (start out in the backyard? Just pack the car and hope for the best?). We finally decided to skip the trial run in the backyard and actually go to a campground. Unfortunately, we made the decision about a week before Labor Day, and it never occurred to me that we would have problems finding a place to camp. We decided to just drive north and hope for the best. We had 4 campgrounds in north GA mapped out, and we were just going to hit each one and hope that we found a place we could stay. Sort of a stressful situation with a 3-year old on his first camping adventure. At the last minute we decided to call Stone Mountain Park, and sure enough they had some tent sites available! None of them were choice sites of course, but given the situation we decided it was the best option. So, we made a reservation and drove the 10 minutes to Stone Mountain Park for our camping adventure. Of course the entire time were were making jokes like 'well, if we forgot something we can just run home' or 'I can run home and shower in the morning'.
We did some fishing, which Spencer was excited about for maybe 20 minutes before moving on to other things (namely sand, mud, rocks and dirt). I caught the first fish, really by accident, and immediately freaked out and yelled for Fred to come release it. The folks fishing down the beach from us thought that was hysterical. Spencer was excited to see the little fish (then quickly moved on to sand, mud, rocks and dirt again). He was a little confused about why we were throwing it back, but didn't have a fit about it.We roasted marshmallows, which of course Spencer decided he didn't like without even trying one. Fred tried to cook bacon on a fork...that didn't work out so well.
One night we decided to try to see the Stone Mtn laser show (a true redneck adventure). There was a handy little shuttle that took us from the campground to the attractions at the mountain. We got there, found a great spot on the lawn, and waited...and waited...and waited... At first Spencer had fun running around and found some other kids to play with. But around 9 he got tired and had just had enough. So he decided to leave. We chased after him and brought him back a few times, but then realized it just wasn't going to work (and the laser show still had not started). So we went to get the shuttle back to the campground, which apparently doesn't actually run during the show...just before and after. Luckily the woman in charge of the shuttles took pity on us so we got our own private shuttle ride back to the campground.

Spencer slept well in the tent, in his new little sleeping bag. The only downside really was that we were camped amongst a bunch of RVs, all of which were pulled by giant heavy duty Ford pick up trucks that sounded like bulldozers. This was very annoying when we were trying to fall asleep at night, or stay asleep in the morning and someone decided they needed to drive the 100 yards to the campground general store. I've also never seen so many golf carts at a campground; it reminded me a little bit of the movie Wall-E.

In all it was a very good camping experience. I think we'll definitely go again, maybe this year but definitely next year. And lesson learned...next time I'll make reservations (in a more tent friendly area). Maybe we can even find some friends to go with us (anyone interested???).