Over the River and through the Woods…

A few weeks ago, during Joseph’s weekly phone call to talk to his [Utah-based] family, we discovered that Daniel and Ruth were soon to be leaving for Tennessee to visit their grandparents. Knowing a good opportunity when we saw it, we had invited ourselves along for the ride within ten minutes of hanging up.

Visiting Joseph’s paternal grandparents – Edward’s great-grandparents – is always a pleasure, and we have enjoyed making the trek every year since getting married. We had established a tentative tradition of visiting for Thanksgiving, but a wedding in the family has made that impossible this year, so our impromptu decision was doubly timely.

The nine-hour drive is certainly not a fun one to make with a wiggly toddler in the car, but overall Edward did quite well. We stopped at a few rest stops, and got creative in finding ways to keep him entertained. I taught Joseph my [Utah-based] family’s traditional car-trip sing-along (“My Home Is Nairobi”), and all three of us were soon caterwauling away.

Even the best of songs cannot entertain for nine hours straight, however, and Edward was relieved enough to get out of the car for good that he didn’t mind finding himself transplanted in such different surroundings. Or maybe he would have enjoyed himself there anyway. Here at home we have no couches to crawl on with Daddy, no flights of stairs leading to impressive overlooks,and the neighborhoods aren’t nearly as pleasant to walk around in. We took several walks with Daddy, and even helped Grandpa walk the dog one morning.

Edward was even happy enough to break out from time to time in what Grandma termed his “fancy pants dance.”

On Monday, several of us headed to “The Hermitage” – the estate of Andrew & Rachel Jackson. The home and grounds were beautiful, although Edward – my budding geologist – was more interested in the native gravel than anything else.

As for Joseph & me, Joseph was able to get in some good recreation in the form of swimming & bicycle riding, while I took advantage of my work-free holiday to get in some quality napping time. Our time in Tennessee was, therefore, well-spent indeed. Now we’ll just have to wait and see whether Edward remembers his great grandparents enough next time he sees them to break out into some serious fancy-pants dancing again.