Perfect Ten-nessee

Everybody thinks that their home state is the best state, but everybody is wrong unless they're from Tennessee. We were reminded of that during our visit there for a couple of days. Nathan and I hung out on familiar turf in Seymour. We stayed with Eddie and Teresa and visited with a couple of old friends while we were there.

As usual, Nathan was a good little traveler. He only slept for about an hour on the way up. We spent the other two hours just chatting back and forth. He kept me on course the whole way by asking, "Mommy, goin' the right way?" at least every 15 minutes.
When we arrived at Eddie and Teresa's house and Nathan saw the pool open, he tried undressing himself to speed things along.
He couldn't wait to get in.
Fun in the sun.

Nathan agrees that we need a pool in our backyard. Maybe I'll have to talk to our landlord about this issue.
Day 2 at the pool. (He did a lot more than just sit on floats, but I couldn't get any action shots with my camera because I was always involved in the action.)
He was pretending like this whale was airplane and making it fly, saying "zoooom" as he moved it through the air. Of course, Nathan had to check out the foliage around the pool.

Nathan introduced this new form of entertainment to Parker. It's called free fun. (Parker has everything any kid could ever want.) He showed him how much fun it is to run fast. We ran up and down the driveway all evening, stopping only to rehydrate. They would take turns counting, 1, 2, 3...GO! Then we would all take off and run as fast as we could while laughing the whole way.
One of Nathan's greatest thrills is being licked by animals. It's usually just dogs, and sometimes cats, but he tried getting the horses to lick his face.
Down here in the south we don't have luxuries like beds. Nathan is just lucky he's not sleeping on a dirt floor. Just kidding. Contrary to popular belief, we do have modern amenities. He was so sleepy after all the fun he had that he fell asleep while playing with Cassie, the dog.
Nathan and I visited my friend, Amanda, one night. She has three dogs (one is a rescued greyhound and she's a little weird so she had to stay outside). Nathan absolutely loved playing with two of them. He wouldn't leave them alone all night. He loved having the dogs at his mercy, thanks to the can of fried onions. (Amanda is an avid blog reader so she knows everything about Nathan.) He was making them do tricks in exhange for tiny pieces of onions.Dogs are one of Nathan's favorite things in the world.

When we left Amanda's house, she asked Nathan if he would show her his bobbleheads. (She's coming to visit us in September.) He was happy to agree to that. All I heard about the whole way back to Eddie and Teresa's house was, "I show 'Manda bobbles." Then every once in a while he would throw in "I show 'Manda dinosaurs. I show 'Manda fans." So Amanda, just letting you know that he has some big plans for you during your visit to South Dakota. You may have to skip Mount Rushmore. It's no big deal though, it looks the same as it does in pictures.

Back at Eddie and Teresa's house, Nathan wouldn't leave Cassie alone either.

Chelsea, Parker, Me and Nathan On the way out of town, Nathan and I met Cordia and Jay for lunch at P.F. Chang's. Nathan and Jay had a good time hanging out together.
You would have thought that they've been friends for years and years.
Actually, the way home was very similar to the drive up. Just a little sleeping with a whole lot of talking. Of course, he made sure I was going the right way to "big Paw-Paw's house." That's what he calls Paw-Paw's house, word order is a little obscure.