It started off innocently enough...

Luci and I left for the MidSouth Homeschool Convention early Thursday morning.  It's about a four-hour drive to Memphis from our house, and we planned to visit the Memphis Zoo before going to the "fancy hotel" (Luci's words).

When we were about three hours from home, Bryan called me.  The boys had gone to church to work in the Friendship Center's food pantry, and were on their way home.  Except they couldn't get home.  Seems they ran over an animal, and now the car was kaput.  Bryan said it was a goat, laying in the road.  On a country road, far from any kind of place to pull over, and the car is not working.  A goat?  Yes, a goat.  Or maybe it was a deer.  (It was a deer.)

Bryan and JT got a ride home with a Florence Utilities worker, who had also lent them his phone. (Why did we buy you a phone and get this ridiculously expensive family plan if you're not going to take it with you?!  At least that lesson was learned, and both promised to not ever leave home without their phones again.)  They were followed by the AAA tow truck. (At least Bryan remembered that he had a AAA membership!  Which paid for itself Thursday.)

Where was John when all that went on?  He had a job on the eastern side of the state, and did not get home until nearly 6 p.m.  He got a good look at the car the next morning and it was fixed lickety-split, and cheaply, too.  So that ended well.

After the first of the not-so-frantic calls (Bryan does stay calm in a crisis), we made it to the zoo.  Luci and I saw marvelous things.

Ginormous hippos.

A bit of China

More China...

A bird who decided to nest in China

We saw Buddha...but I could not get Luci to rub its belly for good luck.  This is the closest I could get her to it...and she does not look too thrilled! (Fake smile alert!)

The reason we needed to go to the Memphis Zoo...Pandas!  

We are such country bumpkins...thrilled and scared at the same time at being in the flight path for Memphis' airport.  We were buzzed by quite a few Federal Express planes.  That plane (in the middle of the photo) was lots closer than it looks.  I promise you, I could tell the pilot needed a shave.

We saw a three-legged elephant (not really, but this photo sure looks like she only had three legs!)

And this mighty polar bear who swam around and around and seemed to pick out Luci for a snack (she's in the middle of these children).

At the end of our time there, we went back to see the pandas...and found them napping on baked potatoes...no, wait...that's poop! This one is sleeping on his own poop. Yuck.

After the zoo, we made it to the fancy hotel, which had many floors, two glass elevators, and escalators!  What joy for a six-year old who lives in a town devoid of escalators and glass elevators.  We explored and found our room, found the short cut to getting to the convention, and found there was a trolley that went right past the hotel.

I brought my Sunday-church-keep-the-kid-occupied bag to let Luci dig in while we went to lectures.  I got to go to a total of four, count 'em four lectures.  Out of probably 200 total classes to choose from.  Sigh.  But the ones we did go to were good ones.

The first was on children with learning disabilities.  John and I are wondering about Luci...some days she seems to know her stuff, some days she doesn't.  It is really baffling!  The very first lecture I chose, by two reading specialists, was exactly what I needed to hear as we figure out what Luci needs.  We have an appointment with the International Adoption Clinic at the end of the month to help us unravel the puzzle that is Luci.  The lecture I heard by the Eckenwilers (The Struggling Reader) was so helpful.  We also went to a math lecture, one on field trips, and one on worldview by John Stonetreet (Summit Ministries) that was wonderful.  I would love to get his materials to use with the kids, but they are pricey (even with the discount that was available at the convention).

The only drawback to John Stonestreet's lecture was that it was in a huge room, built of concrete blocks.  The echoing was horrible!  Terrible acoustics. I wanted to get all of his lectures on CD but if they all sounded like that, well, no thank you.  I found out that the concert with Tim Hawkins was to be in that same hall...Luci just about went nuts in there with all the echoes, so I sold our tickets.  I felt like a drug dealer, holding out my tickets on escalators, in hallways and in elevators, trying to sell them.  But sell them I did!  This link will take you to youtube, where you can hear Tim's song, "Things you don't say to your wife."  Trust me, it's worth the click.

Luci's favorite parts of the trip were SHOPPING!  EXPLORING!  SWIMMING! (which "We didn't do since Mommy forgot the suits and I'm not letting her swim in her panties, ooh, icky!" said Luci) and THE TROLLEY!

The Trolley was cheap, just a dollar for me and free for Luci.  We rode the Loop, which went in a loop (duh!) and brought us back to the hotel in a nice 40 minute ride.  We saw the Pyramid Arena, which tickled Luci to no end ("Egypt in Tennessee! Do you think Moses is in there?"), homes along the waterfront of the Mississippi River that sell for at least $1.3 million (the cheap ones go for that!), and a big surprise to me--the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. Martin Luther King was shot.  It is now a part of The Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.  It really was a shock to see it...I recognized it from all the times I've seen it on the news and had no idea it was so close to where we were spending the night (yes, I'm old enough to remember when that actually happened).

Unfortunately we did not get to see Graceland...I had thought of posing Luci in front of the gates with a little sign that said, "Eat your heart out, Uncle Marty!" but it was just too far in bad traffic.  Another time.

Luci had a before-bed ritual each night we were there...jumping up and down on the Tempur-Pedic bed "to get it all fluffy for us."  So glad she did that.  Because I really did not like that mattress!  I sleep lots better on a regular mattress.

You see snobs, even among homeschoolers.  Mostly they are not clothes snobs (some of the mommas look "crunchy," wearing their babies in slings and eating homemade granola bars, sandwiches on homemade bread brought in their little ice chests) but "education snobs."  Do you know what I mean?  The kind of moms who tell you all about their little four-year-old Shakespeare-reading darlings.  That type of snobbery.  Well, with our "Average Family" I have learned to ignore lots of that, but it does get tiring.  By Friday afternoon I was ready to scream!

Especially with our little Princess, who seems brighter than our home-grown kids, having some difficulties...well, you just can't blame me for getting peeved when one vendor asked Luci how old she was.  "Six."  Oh, I have a six year old, too!  He's over there playing chess.  Just lovely. Smile and move on, Susan.

Then there was a "learn Spanish" booth.  Perfectly nice ladies, wanting Luci to color ("This is VERDE, darling,") and asking me if she was learning Spanish (with the implication that I should be doing that, or else I'm doing her irreparable harm).  I had had enough.  I pulled the language card on her!  I said, "We're working on Mandarin." (How exotic is that?)

Which we sorta are.  We do watch Ni Hao Kai Lan every chance we get, and I do have Rosetta Stone's Mandarin installed on my computer for later on.  (insert evil laugh here)

Enough excitement!  Time to go home...so we wait on Saturday for the tornado watch to pass (what's a road trip without a tornado watch or two?) and start on our way...after arguing (nicely, and with a smile) with the front desk lady that my breakfast (that super-expensive buffet) was supposed to be free, so why is it on my bill twice??  Once the bill was taken care of, we headed out of town and saw a car on fire, fully engulfed in flames along the freeway.  Never have seen one on fire before.  Score another one for big-city thrills.

Then...the phone call about the fridge at home...where is the warranty, Susan, the thing quit working and the repairman says it's the compressor?    Warranty was found, and we are still waiting on the compressor, on Monday night, while eating out of two ice chests in the kitchen.  Sigh.  I am hoping we end up getting a new refrigerator out of this.

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Tuesday Morning Update:  Just heard from the appliance store...the compressor should be in this afternoon or tomorrow morning and they are going to fix it.  No new fridge for me this time.