Written by TJ and Jaime | 07 September 2010

We went back to the Zoo on labor day ironically enough while the pool guys were working.  We have pool lights installed now!  They don't have power yet, I'll be hooking that up tomorrow evening.  At least the install went well.  At one point I came out and saw two holes cut into the pool.

Anyway, the zoo.  I did say we bought a season pass, didn't I?  Well we are going to use it.  Nora had fun and she got a really close look at this mystery animal. that I got a few close-up shots of.

First person to correctly guess the Mystery Animal,  gets a personalized message from Nora.

Like the one she sent to mommy in the pictures below.  The Mystery animal has Mystery Animal visible in the picture.  It's not the pig, donkey. or the Mexican pool guys.

Click the comments link at the bottom of the post to add your guess  ...or click here: Comments

Written by TJ and Jaime | 06 September 2010

It's been a pretty lazy weekend.  The pool guys have been off so there isn't much progress since the last update.  Electrical is installed.  The pool still has the same two feet of water that you saw on the last video.  The water is now hella gross with all sorts of bugs and green goo growing in it.  It's more like a pond now then a pool.  Jaime and I are wondering if they will drain it, fill it with bleach, drain that, then start filling it again.  We hope so.   The pool crew comes back on tomorrow (Monday) to install the lights and hopefully the pump and heater.

We had some University of Tennessee architecture students come over on Saturday to design us a ramp to get from the deck to the pool.  There is a four foot height difference so the ramp must be 48 feet long to comply with code.  Yeah, that's no type-o.  Almost 50 feet of ramp,

We had a backup Nurse come over on Sunday.  She will be Nurse Kim's backup since NK has brain surgery in a week.  There is another nurse we get to interview before we make our decision.

Nora is doing great especially because mommy is home.  She's been talking up a storm and we are trying to get her to sing.  We took her to Border's books on Saturday evening to let her pick out a book....but left with three.  We had our first public mini meltdown as Nora did not want to leave the children's book section.  There was some Elmo paraphernalia in there that Nora had to let everyone know about.  She must have done her Elmo sound perhaps, 80 times, at least.  We were like "yeah, yeah okay we get it".  Jaime kept pulling books from the shelves and reading a few pages, then deciding we didn't want that book, put it back.  Apparently, Nora wants us to buy every book mommy touches.  We really need to get that girl out more often, because it was really fun - despite the tears.

Written by TJ and Jaime | 02 September 2010

Jaime is out of town on business so I've been taking care of Nora.  Not single-handed though.  Nurse Kim is here during the day and has really been helping me out to prepare all her nighttime food and meds.  I would not be able to work this whole week if it wasn't for Nurse Kim.  Speaking of the great NK, she taught Nora to do "I Don't know" with her hands.  It's pretty funny to see and you can really see how hard Nora has to work to get it.   This video is mostly for Jaime since I know she's having a hard time being away from Nora.  Enjoy the video, my dear sweet wife and please hurry home!  lol

No Mommy video - father and daughter time

Written by TJ and Jaime | 30 August 2010

Grandpa Gooden visited us for the weekend.  He was just passing through on his way back home to Naples, FL.  In honor of his visit, we decided to take Nora to the Knoxville Zoo.  We have been there twice in the past and were generally disappointed.  It's a beautiful and clean Zoo but sometimes the animals don't cooperate and we spend most of the time trying to see where the phunk the animals actually are!  Apparently our timing was off in the previous attempts since we kept visiting during nap time.  This trip was sooo different and actually exciting (which was good since we bought a season pass).  Not only were the animals active, but there were actually coming over to the people watching areas.  When we got to the lion area, he just walked all the way from the rear of his cage - right up to us!  Maybe SMA kids smell delicious to Lions?  Nora got a great long look at most of the animals and even got her feet smelled by a camel....but who hasn't?

Grandpa leaves on Monday and Jaime is in Atlanta for the week doing some training.  It's me and Nora for the whole week (and Nurse Kim during the day).   I expect this week to be really really long.

The pool might be finished this week too.  We are waiting on those fantastic donated lights to arrive so everything is currently on hold.

So, do you want to get really upset?  Read this article Tennessee in middle of embryonic stem cell fight