The Life and Times of Zach, Katie, Claire, and Nora: July 2013

We decided that this year's summer vacation would be a visit to Great Grandma's house in Tennessee. While there, she could meet her Grand Aunt Joy and see Grandma and Grandpa!

We left Boise early on July 3rd headed to Nashville with one layover in Denver. Claire was a great traveler and even slept a little on the second flight. For the most part she was content to read books, magazines, and play with her toys. We arrived in Nashville around 1:30pm and got to meet my childhood friend Doug who is now a lawyer in Nashville. Doug got to meet Claire for the first time while we got our rental car. The four of us proceeded on to Trader Joe's to get a Claire a few food items before we began the 90 minute drive south to Great Grandma's.

After bidding adieu to Doug, we drove down to Winchester, arriving at the house in the late afternoon. It was great to be back at Great Grandma's house, a place where I have lots of childhood memories. It is the only house from my childhood still in the family! Naturally, everyone was excited to see Claire and it ended up being a little bit of a late night with all of the excitement and a pizza dinner from Rafael's.

We spent much of our time at the house, partly because of the unusually rainy weather going on during our stay. On Saturday, we did make a partial day trip to Chattanooga to visit the Creative Discovery Museum. It is a children's museum and while Claire was a little small for many of the exhibits, she still had a blast and was not ready to leave after two hours when it was time for lunch! For lunch we met my Mom's college roommate Linda and her husband David at the Big River Grille. After having a nice lunch and catching up, we headed back so Claire could get her nap.

During our stay we also let Claire play at the Winchester City Park, swam in the pool at the Tullahoma Holiday Inn Express, and even set off a few fireworks. The fireworks had to wait until the 7th when there was finally a dry evening! While shopping for fireworks it was abundantly clear that Tennessee sells the best fireworks! Claire was too young to invest in the "good" stuff though! On July 4th, we attempted to have family pictures taken but Claire was acting too much like a toddler so they didn't work out as well as hoped. On the 8th, Doug had to make a court appearance in Manchester and afterwards came out to the house to hang out for the day. We had a good time catching up, checking out Tims Ford State Park, and having a nice dinner at the Camino Real Mexican restaurant.

On Tuesday, we got up early and drove up to Nashville for our return flight. Other than the airline person giving us guff for having a suitcase that was too heavy, everything went well. On the first flight, Claire even got her own seat! We arrived back in Boise in the mid afternoon in time for Claire's nap. I had time to mow the yard and get back to the grind at work. In short, it was a great trip and we wish it could have been longer!

Below are lots of pictures and videos from our trip! Plus a few others from the past couple of weeks in Boise are thrown in as a bonus!

Claire July 2012 Pictures!
Grandma's Pictures of Claire!
Pictures of Doug and Zach
Claire With the Ducks Video
Claire Sees the Ducks Video
The Sparkler Video
Little Missy Refuses to Dance Video
Shake Your Booty Video
Claire Forward Rolls Video
Claire Jumps and Dances Video
Claire Does the Steps With Daddy Video
Claire and Family in the Pool Video
Claire Eats Spaghetti Video
Claire Does PTL Video
Claire on the Slide at the Creative Discovery Museum Video Part 1
Claire on the Slide at the Creative Discovery Museum Video Part 2
Claire Runs In the Rain Video
Go See the Blue Flowers Video
Claire on the Uneven Bars Video
Claire Splashing in the Fountain Video

The Life and Times of Zach, Katie, Claire, and Nora

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Summer Trip to Tennessee!

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Claire Summer 2013 Update!