Wizzer's World

So here I am on a day when I should be in class, but instead I am lounging around in Nashville. This would probably be one of the first “do nothing” vacations I had taken in a long long time. Honestly, when you take a vacation somewhere, you end up sight seeing, or going somewhere where there is lots to do. I don’t know that I have ever taken a vacation where I just got to do nothing. It wasn’t completely like that the whole time, but it was close (and somewhat nice). I did get mired in some school crap. (Group project week was probably a bad time to go on travel) AIU’s website is horrible when it comes to ADA and W3C compliance. Unless you have a PC with IE on it, you’re hosed. My travel computer is a Mac. Thankfully I managed to get through the school stuff and have ample time for visiting and such.

On Friday, Lee and I took Andrew and Damon to the Adventure Zone. It was a discovery type place with a planetarium and lots of cool gizmos. It might have been a bit young for Andrew, but he had fun regardless. We even played a cool mind test game where the person who relaxes their brain functions the most wins. You strap these contact points to your forehead and there is a ball that you have to push with your lack of mind power. I won against everyone, but I am not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. We stayed for the planetarium show (it was just meh). The Planets show was ok, but I think the stars and galaxies show would have been cooler. After that we headed back to the house to relax (It started raining)

Saturday, we slept in. I needed it. I was still tired from the drive down. When we finally started moving, we decided to go to the Opry Mills mall. They have an IMAX theater there that is playing Superman Returns in 3D. It’s not really 3D, there were only 3 scenes in 3D and you had to have the special glasses. The scenes they used were filled with action and almost gave me a head ache. The movie was still as good as it was before. But unless you haven’t seen it yet, don’t bother with IMAX. It is good if it’s your first time, but going to see it again on the big screen was just meh.

Now, before the movie, one of the most phenomenal things happened!!! We were walking past the local sporting store and through the window you could see the climbing wall. I made a comment to Andrew about climbing it and he replied with a “Maybe.”

Maybe??

Rewind to about 6 months ago. Amy, Andrew and I were walking through the Dicks sporting goods and they have a climbing wall there. I had tried to get Andrew to climb it, even offering to do it with him. We argued for about 30 min in the store about climbing that wall and he would have nothing to do with it.

Back to current day, he said “Maybe” and that’s all I needed. I dragged him into the store and we saw it was only $5. Damon said that he would do it too (Damon is only 8). I offered up the $10 for both of them and Damon jumped on it. Andrew was still showing a little fear. This is when Damon whips out the pure gold comment of:
“Come on, you can do it, I am going to do it and I am only 8, you’re 13!”

I about pee’d myself. Andrew was very nervous, but he said he would do it. It probably helped that I offered up a $10 prize if he rang the bell at the top. Damon went first and was up and down in no time. Andrew finally suited up and started his way to the top. He took it slow and was oblivious to everything but the wall.

He did it. I was so proud. This was a huge fear that he completely overcame! You know what he said to me afterwards?

“Maybe when we get back I can try the Dicks one again!”

The rest of the trip was fun with the relaxing and hanging out. Andrew getting over his fear was priceless