This is one of Jaime's posts.  She occasionally guest stars on the blog by writing about events that I wasn't able to participate in.  

This post took a while because I have been lazy and avoiding writing.  Back in April, I had the opportunity to take a few days off of work while Nurse Kim fulfilled some of her nursing duties with a board meeting in Maryland.  The three days I had off were filled with doctor’s appointments and other things that are hard to squeeze in when working full time.  I figured if I had to take some time off, it would be a perfect time to have....

We were supposed to go hiking on Jaime's birthday but the weather had other plans - instead we took Nora to the Knoxville Museum of Art because we wanted to do something interesting.  This was Nora's first visit and we hoped she would be entertained enough to enjoy herself.... yeah dumb idea.

We arrived and went through the outside part of the exhibits.  We were unanimously unimpressed by the first few sculptures we saw (one being the house that appeared to be pulled up by the roots).  We went through the galleries next and...

So this afternoon we decided to have a picnic at a local park.  Nora sits in the back of the van with Jaime and I drive.  Nora has a pretty good view out of the side window but since she is reclined she usually only sees things that are high up.  Like when we pass the Target store near our house she will say "O" because, well... the target bulls eye logo is an "O" after all.  Anyway on this trip she was pretty quiet until we passed something that caught her eye.  "dinosaur!" she said...

Following Hollywood Studios we took a day off from Disney and went to SeaWorld.  I think I may have been there when I was little but this was Jaime and Nora's first time.  We decided to arrange for a private VIP tour where you're escorted around the park by your own guide.  We figured that it would make things easier with Nora's special requirements and allow us to get the most out of the park.  

Our guide was a young girl named Amanda who ironically also worked as a character with Tinkerbell and the rest of the Fairies (that wasn't meant to sound derogatory, they really are a bunch of Fairies).  If you remember, this was the same group that made Jaime cry two days earlier saying we couldn't wait in the air conditioning because we weren't with "make-a-wish".  (Amanda wasn't with them then)

Anyway, Amanda knew SeaWorld like the back of her hand.  We saw the Shamu killer whale show first which made us glad we sat out of the "splash zone" since spending the day in wet shoes f'in sucks.  The rest of the tour was spent bouncing from show to show always getting to each exactly as it started.  Amanda orchestrated the tour like a boss and entertained us with some great stories and occasional fish facts.  I kept Amanda on her toes most of the day by asking every stupid and borderline offensive fish question I could think of....