[Nicolas] Cooker Baby

just letting you know that we're safe in nashville. we left new orleans friday afternoon - a day before the mandatory evacuation was announced, and spent the night in oxford, ms. then we drove up here to nashville saturday during the day. nicolas has been great almost the whole time. he loved being back in nashville and seeing some of his old familiar toys and books and surroundings. and as usual, he's kept us thoroughly entertained with silly dances and songs, and lots of great questions: does the storm have a house? will the storm go inside our house in new orleans? and when he sees the radar image of hurricane gustav on the computer he says, "look at that thunder, daddy!" we're glad we have a nice place to retreat to during all this. we visited with nashville friends and neighbors for a while today. it's such a nice town, and the people here are great. but we are hoping the storm passes through new orleans quickly and we can get back there sooner. until the

but we still love it here, and there's no other place like it in the world. where this thing will hit is still very much up in the air, but we're heading north tomorrow just to be safe. hopefully, we'll be back here next Wednesday. in the meantime, here's some pics from this past weekend when we visited the incredible Aquarium of the Americas. Nicolas pet a baby shark, some stingrays, and loved playing on the little playground equipment they had there too: penguins! an oyster! i hope to post from new orleans next week!

last weekend mary took nicolas over to CC's coffee house on Esplanade. we ran into an old friend who meets there every sunday with dozens of other scooter owners in new orleans before they take off on an afternoon ride through the city. he and his friends were kind enough to let nicolas sit on their bikes. he liked the green one best:

Nicolas spent last week with his grandma and grandpa up in Oxford. we caught up on work and rest but were so happy to get him back on Saturday. he went back at school today after a weeklong vacation and when i picked him up this afternoon he was in high spirits. it was raining so we skipped our usual post-school playground stop and went home. he helped us clean up a bit and prepare dinner and then entertained us for the rest of the evening with the kind of pure silliness and joy that only a 2 year old can create. sorry no pics this post - our little camera died at satchmo summerfest, so we're relegated to iphone shots and real video camera footage (when i have time to work with it). i'll ask mary to send me some of her more recent iphone pics of the little guy this week and post 'em up when i find a few spare minutes.

we had a blast at satchmo summerfest in the quarter saturday: nicolas opted for an "arm painting" over a face painting from the face-painting lady: and he won some nifty sunglasses after playing a game at the kids' tent. perfect for a sunny day in new orleans: