And unfortunately, much like Star Wars and the Matrix, the third episode isn’t as good as anyone would have wished.

(Or at least the post isn’t… The kids unveiling was just fine)

We loaded the Kids into the vehicle at the Space center, and proceeded up 565 towards Nashville. Since we were leaving ~4:15pm, and the Airshow was ending about the same time, there was definitely some apprehension from me about how much traffic we were going to get into. Turns out, aside from a 5 minute slow period of about 35mph on the interstate, there wasn’t any major issue. That wasn’t bad at all. And both kids were out before we hit 65 North.

Mary slept the whole way, dreaming of the surprise to come. (We had to tell her something to detach her from her grandmother!) William slept most of the way, and then, in a fashion unique to himself, woke and screamed through half of Tennessee. Mary was oblivious.

Mary woke 2 minutes away from the house, perfect timing intact.

Jeff began to get the kids out while I grabbed the Camera bag and ran to the back. The Video camera went on the fort itself, the SLR in my hand, and the rest of the bag everywhere else. You can see the chaos spread since I was trying to make sure I caught their face when they saw it.

Pictures are here.

And the video (technical issues NOT resolved) is here:

Mary And William discover the Playfort from Greg Nicholson on Vimeo.

I’m a bit peeved. It took multiple multi hour sessions to get the video encoded from 1080i to 720p H264 AND under the limit for Vimeo. And then, it turns out that it failed on their end, and (based on the result) it looks like they down-sampled pretty heavily just to get it up. My guess is that the original file exceeded their encode parameters. If you are in the adventurous mode, and you’ve got tons of bandwidth, you can download the original .MOV file, at 485M. It’s probably not worth it though.

I’ll probably re-encode just the initial reactions and upload them on Wed when the counter resets.

The kids loved the fort, and they have played on it every day. William freaked again today when he saw it. It will be interesting to see how long it’s ‘new’ to him.

It is absolutely worth it. Not saying that I want to do it again anytime soon, but it was/is definitely worth it.

This turned out to be pretty easy, as Grandmother met us at the Cullman exit Crackerbarrel. Neither kid knew anything about it, and their faces when they saw her was priceless. Mary was all smiles, and William was literally trying to rip himself out of the car seat to get to her.

William was funny, as immediately after getting Grandma, he holds his hands up and to the side, and with a quizical look, “Papa?”

Papa was still at home, as his treatments haven’t left him with much energy. Thankfully they will be over soon.

We had figured that this would reduce the amount of time the kids were in the car, and give them some time with the Grandparents. They just don’t seem to get enough of that anyways! Next week was the Airshow in Huntsville, so we’d return for that. In the meantime, we had our own plans!

And no, it’s not what you think! (or us for that matter).

We bought the Kids a playfort. That was Monday Lunchtime. I’ll now show you the following week. It’s completely wrong than an entire week compresses to 30 seconds. It looks best if you press the expand icon next to the Vimeo logo. That will show the clip in 720p High def.

Playhouse Construction from Greg Nicholson on Vimeo.
Rockwalls and Upside down mounting beams SUCK.

We spent practically every available moment building this thing. Both came home at lunch, and we worked from 5 till after ten most nights to get this done before the kids returned. Jeff was quite happy at first, when on Wed, it started to storm. She actually thought I might stop and we could go eat dinner at the local Mexican place. HA! There were parts that could be constructed in the Garage. She didn’t speak very much to me that night.

I don’t think the kids missed us at all, although they did ask once if we thought about them. Oh, I assured them, they never wandered from our minds.

In a rare state of wakefulness, Daddy got up this morning and we went to the Zoo. It was a bit cool outside, but would warm on up to the mid 70′s by afternoon. We got there before most of the crowd, and was immediately in for a shock, and a treat.

William decided that he did not want to ride in the stroller, nor push it, nor be carried. William decided that he enjoyed walking yesterday, and would continue the tradition. From the car to the gates of the zoo. And then to the Macaws. AND THEN MOST OF THE REST of the Zoo. Kid did NOT want to be carried, would cry and scream if you picked him up. He’d stop, crouch down, occasionally LAY down on walkway, but then would get up and go. He walked almost non-stop from the Car to the far end of the zoo near the Cougars. At the end, Mary gave up her seat in the stroller so he could sit and eat some dinosaur chickens, but it was his stomach that got him in the end. I think that had he not been hungry (2 hours after starting this adventure), he would have kept going. Certainly after he ate, he was back up and walking again.

Mary Vic was quite happy to show Daddy the new Porcupines, and we got to watch a bird show with a hawk. Mary watched quite attentively, while William decided the most fun to be had was walking between where Mommy had sat to Mary and then up to Daddy, and repeat.

We stopped and had lunch at the Cafe there @ the zoo. Mary was introduced to Dipping Dots. I didn’t want to get her on those, but there weren’t any icee’s, and frankly, I was still in a bit of a cloud of bliss from all of the bipedal action William was demonstrating. I gave in.

After Lunch, it was on the play park, where guess what? William kept right on going.

You would think after as much as they did this morning and early afternoon, they’d be asleep immediately upon hitting the car seats. Both of them are still up as I write this.

Jeff’s try to get William to go to sleep, MV’s watching a movie as part of her quiet time, and Daddy is on cloud 9.

Now unfortunately, he does stumble quite a bit, and the speed simply isn’t there yet, but I don’t think it’s going to be long before he’s back. There were plenty of signs of it today. Anyone recognize this pose?

He’s bouncing back, and it’s one of the best feelings I can imagine.

First order of the day was a quick stop by the County Adminstrative Complex to drop a document off at Benefits. MaryVic was tickled pink to meet another Mary also named after both of her grandmothers! We also ran by HR for a quick visit. MaryVic regaled the nice ladies with all the details of a 1980′s cartoon series, SkyDancers. It actually is not a ‘quality’ animation but she loves it and could talk about it in detail. She surprised us all by talking about the ‘netherworld’ and ‘sky clone’.

And then we were off to the zoo! I tried to twitter but it can’t find my location yet so all my twitters were not successful once we were at the zoo. I don’t know why the first one from the zoo went but none of the others did. We must have just parked in the right area of the parking lot.

I had joked about there being 6 buses on a previous visit to the zoo and Murphy’s Law was in full effect as there were at least 20 buses at the zoo on Thursday. Franklin Road Academy, Davidson County metro schools and Franklin Special School District were there and I’m sure there were other schools.

As we went in, we saw the sign for the zoo show, Practice Makes Perfect, and decided to attend. I figured by the time we got past the first animal exhibits and had snack it would be time for the show.

First stop the big blue parrots.

MaryVic, navigator. She recycled the map right after this. We didn’t need it today in her opinion.

I was waving at her through the trees and took this accidental shot of my shoes.

Snacks before the big show…

The set, stage. MaryVic was most disappointed that this show didn’t have the animals coming through the holes in the wall.

And it starts and they are mesmerized because…

the trainer has a big bird that talks!

And a box turtle with three feet. She probably lost one foot via a lawn mower and now cannot survive on her own. This picture was taken right before she, the turtle, peed on the trainer who didn’t even pause in her dialogue.

William watching.. He was not always this still. The show didn’t catch his attention like it did his sister’s.

Oooo… a Hawkin’s Hawk. It eats jackrabbits that are twice it’s size by ganging up on it and wearing it down till they can kill it. This was the well trained bird and it flew around the audience area to different landings with treats on them.

Where’s the hawk!

One landing point. That is another trainer standing up there.

And back again.

The little noisy green bird. Actually it was quiet during the show but she warned us against them as pets, messy and noisy.

The Franklin Road Academy students were delighted to volunteer one of their moms for a demonstration. The bird took a dollar.

And, after it’s treat, brought it back and laid it in the ladies hand.

They let the kids have a closer look at the hawk and turtle but no touching!

William insisted on going up himself.

A quick stop by the meerkats. They were not out when we passed by on the way to the show.

MaryVic didn’t bump her head on the snake tunnel today but she was unable to convince brother to go through it.

William crawled around a lot. Following sister over the rubber bridge.

Deciding not to do the slide.

In the blue area for toddlers.

MaryVic ran over to give William a hug but I missed the shot. I think he couldn’t get up here and was a little disappointed.

So he came over and attacked Momma.

He can get on the ladder but was then stuck.

Following sister. She wanted us to crawl through the cubicles. It’s easy, just slide. It is easy, if you are short, otherwise it’s just another head banging day.

Come on!

Off to another section of the jungle gym.

Woo-hoo!

And William slides all by himself!

And since this is how the jungle gym looks with kids everywhere, we go home for lunch and naps. MaryVic was actually tired and ready to go.

William fell asleep on the way home but the day wasn’t over yet!

The zoo egg hunt for MaryVic was at 12:30 so we went to Shoney’s first for breakfast. I managed to forget almost everything. Greg remembered the theater tickets before we were out of the neighborhood. I still left behind the zoo carousel tokens and my zoo pass. I had changed purses earlier in the week and didn’t realize they were not there until we were at the zoo. We have a family pass for the zoo and they let us all in anyway.We parked in an undeveloped area of the zoo back beyond the anteater houses and the zoo greenhouse. The zoo entrance for members was right at the elephants and giraffees exhibits. MaryVic put in her bid for a giraffe purse but was distracted by heading on into the zoo for her egg hunt. Daddy found rabbit ears for her and William at the radio station tent. MaryVic wanted to see the Shoney Bear and gave him a HUGE hug. We then tried to take a picture with the Easter Bunny but he went on break. Face painting seemed like a good idea and MaryVic loves it. Unfortunately it was one person and there was no way she’d get her turn before the egg hunt. Poppa and Daddy distracted her with a carousel ride. Poppa rode with her for his first carousel ride of the year. Then it was time for the easter egg hunt madness. Grandmomma, William and I had staked out a spot at the front. It became crowded quickly. Many more people attended than the previous year. While MaryVic was riding the carousel, E.B. passed through and high-fived William. He came by again but it was at a run. They did get to pet the ostrich before the egg hunt started.MaryVic picked up a few eggs. She started to only get three but went back to get more and Greg was able to get some good pictures. Egg hunting with William was more of an exercise. I had to carry him out and lower him down at an angle so that he could grab some eggs. Take those to Grandmomma and then go back and grab some more.It did not matter how many eggs a child picked up. Everyone got the same treat bag for the eggs. Off to the treat tents and everyone got a treat bag. Luckily William was willing to turn in his eggs after watching sister do it. Candy, easter egg ears, bubbles!, toy and candy! They were allowed a piece of candy and put on the easter egg ears for a minute.There was still some time before we needed to head to the theater so we took MaryVic to the playground. Grandmomma chased her around some, Daddy chased her around some. She played Momma knock over in the blue toddler area where William was getting some toddler time. She gets this look on her face, ‘I’m going to get you’ determination, and runs full force at you. The key is to start rolling back before she hits you otherwise you are going to get hurt.After play we headed off for MaryVic’s surprise, the Nashville Childrens Theater to see Go Dog Go! (http://www.nashvillechildrenstheatre.org/yellow/dog.htm). It was a cool performance of the P.D. Eastman book with actors pretending to be dogs and all over the stage. Some slapstick humor, audience involvement, and nice music. It was very energetic and colorful. Everyone enjoyed although MaryVic was very disappointed that no dragon was in it. She saw the theater’s dragon on the tickets and next month they are doing The Reluctant Dragon. Between the two she was quite sure a dragon should have been around somewhere! Both kids fell asleep on the way home. William woke up enough at home for Greg to carry him in and put him down in the den. We took it easy somewhat for the rest of the evening. Ordered pizza and then realized during clean up that we had not dyed eggs with MaryVic. What was going to be a quick activity took a couple of hours as Poppa determined we didn’t have enough eggs and we experimented with vinegar and without vinegar in the dye.William was frustrated not to be able to help.

MaryVic had to look at the eggs every 3 seconds during the process which dragged out the dying somewhat although Poppa was able to distract her by threatening to eat the eggs. She was very good and gentle but it didn’t last as it became late and she became tired.

Eventually everyone was totally worn out and had to retire for the night. MaryVic did want to bowl on the Wii (NO!) but eventually settled down and went to sleep.

Alphabet story time at the library on the letter ‘Y’. Mary is in a pink shirt in the middle.

William was more fascinated with the playdough swiss knife from home.

They both enjoyed craft and coloring.

MaryVic’s almost finished Yak. She colored some more and then gave the picture to Mrs. Susan. Gave me a start later in the van when she asked for it and I couldn’t find it. She was upset until I remembered and reminded her that she gave it away.

The bouncy at the Polk Place Easter Egg hunt before Daddy and William got there.

Saying hello to the Easter Bunny.

William at the zoo on Thursday

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MaryVic on the zoo carousel, riding the Kangaroo.

After walking around to see the animals, a strawberry ice cream hits the spot!

MaryVic is ready to visit the zoo playground on Friday. I said we didn’t have to go see the animals.

William is watching his sister run down the snake.

Mary comes out smiling at him and me.

MaryVic riding the carousel again on Friday. She choose to ride a wolf this time. Mommy went on the carousel with her.

William sat on the sidelines and would wave like mad every time we passed by and yelled at him. It was fun to see him light up.

It was a difficult decision to go with MaryVic and leave William to watch but he did fine. She had been really scared Thursday when she rode by herself. William doesn’t usually like to go on the carousel. Maybe when there is someone else with us, I’ll sit with him on the bench to get him used to the motion.

I didn’t have as many pictures as I thought. Most were pretty old but fun to look at such as: