Kids and Kites Day...or Parents and Kites Day?

Nashville is starting to grow on me.  

At the end of the day, even though I miss my job and my friend in Baltimore, I must admit that Nashville is a great city.  There is ALWAYS something to do on the weekends here.  Most of the activities are family friendly or at least kid friendly.  The people are nice...even my hardest teenage cases at school are very respectful young people. There are so many parks and green spaces (I have seen some of the most beautiful birds in the middle of the inner city)...so many amazing playgrounds...and the city is crazy diverse!   There are 30 languages spoken at my elementary school.  There are Egytians, Somalians, Latinos, Laotians, and one of the largest Kurds population in the United States.  Who knew?  I still doubt that we will "settle" here...but it sure has surprised me with its city benefits.  

On Saturday, we ventured to the Bicentennial Mall for the Kids and Kites Day to fight Childhood Obesity. 

Emmanuel was #100!

There wasn't much wind early in the day, so Eli did a lot of running to get the kite started.  He said that instead of fighting childhood obesity, it should be used to fight adult obesity becaise he was exhausted after all of that running!  The first time I ran (backwards), I fell flat on my larger than life pregnancy bottom., which probably isn't a great thing at 6 months pregnant.

Emmanuel tried to figure out how to get that kite up in the air. 
(Here is my 26 week preggo shot for those of you who have been asking!)  We had fun walking up and down the ampitheatre and blowing dandelions.  

E is also fascinated by planes and trains these days (we were pointing to a plane).  Nashville should be called "Train City" instead of "Music City."  There must be a train every 5 minutes--they are in the city, the suburbs, behind schools...it's insane.  The amazing thing is that there are no passenger trains in Nashville--they are all commercial.

Eli and Jarvis had fun flying the kites for their kids (please notice that they are standing--it finally became a sunny/windy day, so they didn't have to work as hard.)

Emmanuel got in on the kite-flying action...

Here is his kite up in the air.

Emmanuel and Jamiya had so much fun playing together.  They both know baby sign language, so it is adorable watching them communicate. 

Ok--this pic is worth a thousand words.  Let's just say that our indestructible kite got stuck in tree.  No one could get it out.  Eli tried to get the kite out of the tree.  His brilliant method was to throw his keys in the tree to knock down the handle of the kite.  Well...you know what happened...his keys got stuck!  Eli and Jarvis tried to rescue the keys to no avail, but at least it made for a great picture! 

Finally, a brave teenager climbed up the tree to try to rescue the keys. 

And the five men below (Eli is not pictured) were giving the teenager instructions.  

Eventually, the teenager rescued the keys...and I would like to tell you that that was the last time the kite got stuck, but that would not be the truth.  I can tell you, however, that it was the last time that Eli's keys got stuck. 

All the while, Jamiya and Emmanuel just played in their own little world...sharing their toys and their food.  

It was a great Saturday afternoon in Nashville.