This afternoon when I got home, you and your neighbor friend Aiden were having a silly string fight! It obviously was a lot of fun for you guys.
But mainly, this week has been all about preparing for our upcoming road trip to Pensacola, Florida.
You have been explaining to Mommy and me that we may be able to dig up some dinosaur bones and treasure chests when we get to the beach. (See Mommy’s drawing below.)
Let’s just say that a recent trip of mine to the Dollar Tree will help make that preconceived idea of yours come true…
In the little bit of time I’ve driven it so far this week, here’s my initial assessment of it:
It feels like I’m driving a luxurious stretch SUV. It’s so spacious inside. The 2 passenger seats in the 2nd row are captain’s chairs that recline just like a normal recliner does.
Not to mention, this Toyota Sienna has a dual screen DVD/Blu-ray player in front of those “recliners.” Sounds like a limo to me!
So here’s to our biggest family road trip to date; other than when you were just a baby. But as an actual boy, we’ve never driven more than 5 hours one way with you.
This trip will be closer to 7 hours. However, I think the vehicle we will be travelling in will definitely make our trip that much more fun!
You are so excited about this van- almost as excited as you are about our treasure hunt…
We will be doing a “Plant-Based Restaurant Tour” of Pensacola, as well as driving out to Gulfarium Marine Adventure Park, where you hope to see a real dolphin and buy a stuffed one as a souvenir.
Your teacher Ms. Aimee lets your class do something special every time you guys earn enough marbles to fill up the jar, on account of good behavior.
A few weeks ago, it was a pajama party. This past week, though, you all had a cupcake party. I was surprised to see the pictures… you actually made your own cupcakes, thanks to Ms. Aimee’s handy dandy cupcake maker.
I didn’t even though that existed… we might have to get one for our house. Here’s your teacher’s note:
“Hi Nick!
Today was our cupcake party!
Jack had a blast mixing all the ingredients together to make our cupcakes.
The best part was frosting and decorating them!”
Jack had a blast today with our guest, Mr. Adam, from Firey Music!
He showed us how to play the; guitar, banjo, and mandolin! Jack got to try each instrument.
Mr. Adam also gave each student an instrument all of their own (the greatest sight you’ve seen, 14 children’s eyes lighting up, finding out they get their OWN instrument!)
Jack has also fallen in love with our magnet tiles! He is the master of building rockets!”
Coming up, we have a fun road trip/mini-vacation planning for Pensacola, Florida. We will be reviewing a 2015 Toyota Sienna, which will only add to the excitement!
On our itinerary is a fun trip to the Gulfarium Marine Adventure Park, as you are currently obsessed with sea animals since watching and reviewing Dolphin Tale 2 a few months ago. You have already decided your souvenir for our trip will be a dolphin stuffed animal.
And it should go without saying, I will officially be reviewing the city of Pensacola from a “vegan friendly” perspective; as I’ve already done with our trips to Atlanta, Asheville, and Lake Tahoe.
I’m excited to see you play in the ocean. I have a feeling you will be looking for baby crabs there on the beach.
Pensacola is apparently only about 6 and a half hours from our new house, which is a bit closer to the ocean than our home in Nashville was.
This may turn out to be a new regular vacation spot for us, like Asheville has become.
Looking back, one of my favorite parts about family road trips, as a kid, was getting to ride through a tunnel in the car.
When on a family road trip, you just never know when one might pop up.
Of course, driving through one was always a little bit scary. There was that idea in my subconscious that we would never come out the other end; that we would not indeed “see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
As I got older, I was happy when my own dad would beep the horn so that it eerily echoed. Likewise, other drivers would do the same; creating this underground, non-aggressive, horn-honking orchestra conducted by random strangers.
I would also try to hold my breath for the entire duration of being in the tunnel; which was always a gamble, not knowing how long the tunnel would be.
You’re not there yet.
This past weekend on our fall road trip from Nashville to Asheville, as we reviewed the 4G capabilities of the 2015 Buick LaCrosse, we encountered one of those glorious tunnels somewhere between the North Carolina state line coming from Nashville headed towards Asheville.
Mommy cheered as the tunnel sort of appeared out of nowhere. Then I did my best to add to the theatrics of it, by pretending to be the voice of a monster, like I did with the “Apple Monster.”
However, you weren’t that impressed. Not to mention, you weren’t even the least bit afraid of the tunnel.
Actually, I think Mommy and I were more excited about driving through the tunnel than you were.
Just to be sure, Mommy and I demonstrated the same excitement as we headed back home, going through it a 2nd time.
Oh well, we’ll keep trying to impress you with our theatrics.
Love,
Daddy
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My nearly 4 year-old son believes in this book too, but for different reasons.
Jack likes the book because he makes a fun game out of “finding the animals” in the 212 pages, most of which contain at least one illustration of the animal that page features.
“Daddy, I found the blue jay!” he proclaims from the back seat on the way home from school, with our copy of The Truth About Nature in hand.
What I personally like about the book is that in a few years, once Jack is able to start comprehending words other than his name when he reads them, he will learn some really cool facts about animals that most people don’t know.
Here’s an excerpt:
Myth 106: Animals sleep with their eyes closed. Sleep varies a great deal from one animal to the next. Some sleep standing up. Some sleep during the day. Some even sleep with their eyes open… Dolphins are the most fascinating sleepers. They actually sleep with one eye open and continue to swim while they’re sleeping!
Like my son, I also appreciate the book’s illustrations. I want to classify the style as “Portland, Oregon postcard from 1983.” The drawings are classic, nostalgic, and enchanted.
The retail price is $18.95. Again, this is a beefy book, with 212 pages.
Our family has discovered it makes a great “road trip” book with all our reviews of cars that we do. This book is entertaining in an interesting way, not simply just in a trivial way.
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So last weekend I broke my Grandma out of the nursing home without anyone knowing it, then I pushed her in her wheelchair a mile down the road while she wore a “seatbelt” we made from a rolled up blanket…
Wait, actually, that’s probably not the best way to start this story. Let me try again.
The last time my Grandma had seen her younger brother Bob was back in the summer of 1987, back when I was six years old, when we took a family vacation road trip to Buffalo, New York where my Grandma and my mom are from.
That was 27 years ago…
But then randomly this year, my great-Uncle Bob decided that he wanted to visit my Grandma (his sister) by train with his girlfriend (he’s never been in a plane and he’s only left the state of New York once).
So I decided it would definitely be worth the 2 and a half hour drive from Nashville where we live, to my hometown in Alabama; taking my own family (my wife Jill and my son Jack) to witness this great reunion- 27 years in the making!
And to make things even more fun, we were able to review the 2014 Lexus GX 460 in the process. Which, for the record, was my personal favorite out of all the many Lexus vehicles I have reviewed within the past year.
The way it drove reminded me of the Toyota Tacoma, my favorite Toyota vehicle, which I reviewed on my 33rd birthday back in April.
My wife Jill appreciated was how spacious the 2014 Lexus GX 460 is. We had to transport some of our son’s toys to my parents’ house; as we are in the process of building a new house (as I recently wrote about when I reviewed the 2014 Lexus GS 450h) and needed a place to store some things.
Meanwhile, my son Jack loved the stadium seating in the back because he could see everything that I could from the driver’s seat. Also, it has a 3rdrow seat from can fold up from the very back.
He convinced us to let him sit in the very back for the entire round trip! Not to mention, to and from school a few days as well.
I was surprised at how easy it was to hear Jack and Jill all the way back there. (I’m sure many educated people at Lexus have labored countless hours over making sure the sound carries that well!)
The visibility from the driver’s seat also greatly impressed me as well. I can’t remember the last time I drove a vehicle with better visibility than the 2014 Lexus GX 460.
So we arrived at my Grandma’s nursing home and along with my dad’s help, were able to lift my Grandma from her wheelchair to the car.
In the process, I also “re-met” my great-Uncle Bob while there, who of course didn’t recognize me as a grown adult. As we talked, I learned from him that it was nearly 100 years ago, in 1923, that his own parents moved to New York from Michoacán, in southern Mexico; though he nor my Grandma ever really spoke Spanish.
The whole family met as a whole back at my sister’s house, just a mile away from the nursing home.
First, we celebrated by brother-in-law (who apparently happens to look a lot like me) turning 30 years old.
Then we headed outside to the “jumpy castle” as Jack and his cousin Calla burned off extra energy they mysteriously gained from not having to take a nap that day.
And of course, we checked out the storm shelter, which has sort of become the routine when we visit.
Next we had a plant-based (vegan) lunch, prepared by my sister…
Followed by an instantly made-up game of “bean bag bumper cars”…
That’s about the time we got a call from the nursing home. Turns out, none of us even thought to actually sign my grandma out. And coincidentally, no one working there noticed us wheeling her out the front door!
The workers were so glad to hear that we had Grandma with us instead of, I guess, her somehow escaping (?) on her own.
However, by that time she was ready to get back to her home. The thing was, she was afraid to be lifted back up into a vehicle for the 0.925 miles back.
We did what every all-American family would have done in the same situation:
My sister and her husband rolled up a large blanket, then I MacGyvered it into a home-made seatbelt. And now this particular photo collage begins to make more sense…
After all, despite it only being about a mile away, the journey was all hills.
Fortunately, my daily routine of mountain biking during my lunch break had conditioned my body to be able to get my Grandma to her destination in less than 15 minutes. She even got to catch a glimpse of the County Fair a few blocks away.
Before we left the next morning, we made sure to snap a few pictures of our family.
Since my brother-in-law/look-alike turned 30 recently, and until Jack turns 4 next month, it means that we are living in a time when my wife and I are both 33, my sister and her husband are both 30, and their daughter Calla and our son Jack are both 3.
So we figured we should take an official picture of this cool “3-30-33” moment.
And that just goes to show that anytime my family gets together, it’s never “normal.”
But it is fun.
If you were entertained by this story, then be on the look-out what happened after we drove back to Nashville to see a Dierks Bentley concert that my wife won tickets for!
Car Review Stats:
2014 Lexus 9700A GX 460 5-DR SUV
4.6 liter V8, 301 horsepower
17 mpg average, 15 city, 20 highway
as shown: $55,505.00
See all 4 posts on the 2014 Lexus 9700A GX 460 5-DR SUV:
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