Father’s Day Fun

Since Nathan was singing with the children’s program at Parkview on Sunday night we went out for Father’s Day on Saturday. We went to play putt putt at an indoor golf place, played at a playground, went to the greatest restaurant in the world (Pravino’s), and ate Frozen Yogurt (sorbet) at this great make your own place “Chill”.

Just Random Pictures

Feeding the Ducks

Nathan’s New DS

 

I guess it is time to tell the story of Nathan’s new Nintendo DS.

I guess it all started last school year when two boys in Nathan’s class decided that they didn’t want to be Nathan’s friend anymore. OK, actually it started last summer at Day Camp when all of the other kids had DSes and all Nathan had was my old Game Boy Advance, but he diligently took it to Day Camp with him and sat and played it alongside the other kids. He never even really complained that his was different (he did want a Toy Story DS that he saw in Target, but that was more around Christmas time).

Anyway, one of the boys that didn’t want to be Nathan’s friend anymore is in Day Camp with him and this boy has a DS. This year I sent Nathan to Day Camp with my old iPod, mainly because the game boy batteries were down, but when he came home he talked about sitting beside this boy and watching that boy play his DS. Every competitive, keeping up with the Joneses, I want my kid to have the best of everything impulse inside of me screamed that my child needs to have his own Nintendo DS!

I was able to put off getting him one for a while, but finally on Monday when I learned that he would need to go to the Doctor on Tuesday and get a ton of shots I was determined to go and get him one. So Meredith counted out all of his change and all of his chore money (which was about $40) and we went to WalMart to pick one out.

Trust me it was all I could do not to buy the new 3DS (which is $250) or at least the DSiXL (which is $150) but in the end I ended up with the basic model that I came looking for. Nathan of course was ecstatic and that is cool to see, and I got a game (Super Scribblenauts that is too much fun) so it has been a big video game week at the Yancey house.

Now before you come up with conclusions about my bad parenting trust me I am already way ahead of you. It really bugs me that Nathan gets so excited over physical things and I am just feeding the beast when I get him new stuff.

But I am his dad and I like to get things for people (as Sumer would say, that is my love language) and so I like to get things for him. On top of that if I can do anything to make his walk through the world of school and other kids easier even if it is shallow and empty I will try it because that boy is so much like me it is scary and I just hope against hope that he will be able to navigate those grade school-middle school years better than I did.

So I am torn about getting this for him, because on the one hand I don’t know if it is best for him and on the other hand it made his week and he and I have had a great time playing it together this week.

In the end I got it because I just love getting things for my son. I love seeing his eyes light up when he has something new. It is cool for me to think that my heavenly father also likes to get stuff for me. It is cool to think that he loves to see my eyes light up when he brings good gifts into my life.

Ok, maybe that is still just trying to justify things. As You can see I am still very conflicted about the whole thing, so I thought I would add the story to this blog for posterity.

O, and Noah now has Nathan’s Game Boy Advance which he refuses to hold right side up. No matter how many times you try to turn it back around again he always turns it upside down. That boy is adorable and will be getting way too much stuff from me soon too.

McWane Science Center

(Meredith added the pictures. This is Shane writing about what happened)

I have more stories to tell about this place than I have time to write, even without having a job right now. Nathan was so excited he was almost trembling. Right as we walked in the door there was a big kinetic sculpture that was colored golf balls rolling through this long track. It would hit on wood blocks and make noise and bounce balls into baskets, generally a pretty cool thing to look at. Well, Nathan and two other little kids who were sitting there thought that the descending scale sound that it made when it hit these 4 wood blocks was hilarious. They stood there waiting for the balls to make it around and hit them again and then all three of them would shriek with laughter. And all of this was before we even bought our admission tickets. We could have stood there for 20 minutes and gotten back in the van and I think Nathan would have been happy.

But we did walk on in, and Nathan was excited, and I have to admit I was about as excited as he was. As he ran into the big first room he was saying. Look! Look! It's science! Not something that can teach about science, no he big things set up were science.

We looked at a bunch of "science" as you will see from the photos and their descriptions below, but what we don't have pictures of is the playground that is in this place. It is massive and perfect. Lots of things to do and touch and even a big submarine that Nathan got in and led the other kids on a mission. We had to drag him out to go see the rest of the museum.

As tends to happen these pictures are in the reverse order, so this was the last place we went. On the bottom floor they have a mini-aquarium. Noah was fascinated by the big moray eel (it is the big yellow green thing you see on the left).

Nathan is getting to be such a brave boy. I guess he is just growing up. Above you see him using his two fingers to touch a shark. Noah wanted to touch the animals too, and made me hold him up by the tank saying "touch it, touch it, touch it" but when a shark or a ray came by he would curl into me and not put his hand down. Then as soon as it was gone he would say "touch it, touch it" again. This went on for about 15 times before I just put him back down.

They have a zip line that is about half a story off the ground. There are pads all along the track, but the first step off the platform is pretty high. I never thought Nathan would get up there and do it, but there were a bunch of other kids in line and when I asked him if he wanted to he raced to join them. I was so proud of him that I was as excited as he was when he was finished.

I might throw back the fish, but I think I will keep the lure.

Sometimes my little boy amazes me. This was a big room of these different shaped blocks. Nathan built a ramp with a little curl at the end and kept making it higher and higher. It was such a hit that all of the other boys came over and started rolling their balls down it too.

Noah is on a archaeological dig using his brush to sweep away the dirt from the dinosaur bones.

There was a water play area inside of the playground (complete with cute little vests for them to wear so they didn't get wet)

By far my favorite room was the bubble room. The picture above with the kid who just wouldn't get out (even though his mom was right there) is of Noah and me inside of bubble. You can see where we are blowing on the wall and it is poking out a bit. Below you see Noah playing in the bubbles. That thing was really cool. It would pull up a wall of bubbles that you could blow on and play with. Very neat. I kept trying to get the kids away from it so that I could play with it, but they kept running up and messing up my bubbles.

This is a catenary arch. I just went on google to look up what this type of arch was called and then realized that I just needed to make the picture bigger so I could see it. The Yanceys put the arch together (the pieces are numbered) and then we took pictures under it. Nathan is "doing karate" because at school he saw Max and Gavin doing karate, so now for some reason weeks later he has started doing it in his pictures. You have to admit the poses are cute.

Visit with Aunt Sumer

Aunt Sumer is in the states for a few days so we all went to Nashville to visit. It was great to see her and Nana and Nanny and to have a few days getaway. Nathan swam in the hotel pool four times in two days. Then on the way home we stopped at the McWane Science Center ...see next post.