Trip to Kentucky, Day 1

Well, this trip got off to a rough start. I hate being at the mercy of other people's schedules. Our original departure time of 4pm was delayed until some time after 5 as everyone along the way made us a little bit later. Then, a trip that should only take between 8 and 9 hours became 10. I didn't get to my mom's until 3am, only to get up again at 8am for my day out at Huber's. The night was only slightly saved by being able to sleep with my Babba.

However, I'm happy to say that today was redeeming. I was picked up at 9am by my friend and her baby, Nick. He was very excited, and kept talking about farms and goats. Of course, there are a lot of farms in Kentucky, so he spent a lot of time pointing out the window and saying, "Farm?" And we would say, "Yes, that's a farm, but we're not there yet."

The day was a little colder than we expected, which was probably due to the slight mist all morning. We braved it in style though. The first thing we did upon arrival was catch the wagon ride to the pumpkin patch. This elicited many "oooh"s from Nick. Despite repeated requests that he say out of the mud and water puddles, he managed to have his shoes completely soaked in no time.

He is at that age where he likes to repeat things. As he ran around the pumpkin patch, he found a pumpkin had been squished. "Look!" "Yes, that one's busted." He spent the rest of our pumpkin hunt finding broke ones and saying "That one's busted" in that can't-quite-say-complicated-words kind of way. C and I kept looking for pumpkins small enough for Nick to carry, which usually meant they were green. When he realized we were pointing out green ones, he helped with that too, though he never wanted any of them. He left the patch happy to have just pointed out the ones that were busted or green or both.

C and I paid for our pumpkins, stowed them in the car, bought tiny pumpkins and stowed those, and then decided it was time for homemade cheese and ice cream. Nick had Nerds. We then took him to feed the fish (very large koi) while I ate my ice cream. He liked this very much. There were a few swan swimming around as well, and he kept yelling through the deck railing, "Come here duckies! I want to feed you!" There were ducks, elsewhere. They were pretty brave, and actually took the feed straight out of my hand. Nick found this very funny. C took that picture, so sorry, I don't have it.

When we ran out of quarters, and decided to do something else (we were hoping for the wine tasting), Nick threw a fit. He kept thinking we were leaving everytime we moved on to a new activity. So we skipped the wine tasting and went to the petting zoo. He was very excited by the goats, and kept asking for more quarters. Luckily, kids drop things, and we found plenty of feed on the ground. Goats are of course very rude, and fought each other for our attention. But then, the llamas, deer, and bunnies all did the same thing.

It wasn't long before Nick grew tired of all this excitement. Though he couldn't leave without making a statement. He chose to cage himself, and I suspect he expected us to feed him. He found this quite funny. Actually, now that I think about it, a little too funny, as I would expect this level of humor to be beyond his grasp at that age.

Midday crankiness set in at this point, and we decided to split and let the car ride lull him to sleep. I then went to dinner at Ruby Tuesday's with my mom and step-dad, where I embarrassed her royally by laughing about the little booger on her face left there by a sneeze.

The rest of the day was spent on the computer and watching tv (I've missed having more than 4 channels). I enjoyed a toga party over at Mo's. I was convinced by my brother to accompany him to Wal-mart, as he hates to shop alone. This provided an amusing conversation:

Brother: Look how he's tailing him. I think he's following him.

Me: You think he's going to pull him over?

Brother: Yup. Watch.

Me: Oh! Nope! Look, he pulled into Cracker Barrel.

Brother: Since when does Cracker Barrel sell donuts?

Well, I was amused at any rate.

We are now enjoying freshly baked cookies, the company of babba and hope, and the ease of multiple computers. It's been a good day.