Sweet Home Alabama

This morning we had a nice breakfast at the campsites and then broke camp to head home. On the way out of the park, we stopped at the Treetop Nature Trail and let the kids run mad on the boardwalk. Dennis was so fascinated by the owls! He stared and pointed and even hooted at them! They loved the trail because we could let them run free--it's a boardwalk with high rails on the sides and a few benches to climb on. They were also delighted to lunch at McDonald's before heading home, and Dennis fell asleep in the car almost before we'd left the McDonald's parking lot. He was exhausted!

Once we arrived home, we put him in his crib and he stretched out to sleep another hour. We got everything unloaded and put away while he slept, and we woke him up to go to the church's Fall Festival this evening. There he waved at everyone, fell in love with Cheese Curls, and picked the floating ducks up out of the pool for 20 minutes, saying "duck" each time. There was a beanbag toss game, and I showed him how to toss the beanbag through the nose of the Jack-o-lantern. He picked up a beanbag, walked up to the board, and stuffed it through the same hole. The prizes were candy, so we skipped prizes. He never knew the difference.

On the way home from the church, Sweet Home Alabama came on the radio and Dennis suddenly started humming/singing along with it. It was so cute! He doesn't often sing along to radio songs. Once we got home, we spent an hour and a half playing in his room and putting all his things away. He had a new load of pajamas from his cousin that we added to his clothing supply, and he seems to like them very much. While we were playing in his room, he brought over one of his Audubon birds to me so that I could make it 'chirp' for him. He chose the Yellowhammer (his second favorite, the Great Horned Owl being number one). The Yellowhammer is a type of woodpecker, so when you squeeze his tummy for the call, you get tweets followed by pecking sounds. Both David and I make the bird 'peck' Dennis along with the pecking sounds, and he giggles in delight at the tickling of its soft beak. Incidentally, the Yellowhammer happens to be the state bird of Alabama, and David noted that today's post should reflect Dennis' interest in the things pertaining to his heritage, both bird and song.

Our trip is over and we're all grateful to be stretched out in our comfy beds tonight, but we had a wonderful time. We're already planning our next trip.