Happy Birthday, Daddy!

It is so fun that Jack is talking so much these days. I can whisper in his ear and he will do things like tell Daniel, "Happy Birthday Daddy!" We are working on learning the tune to the Happy Birthday song, but we aren't quite there yet.

In the past Daniel and I haven't really celebrated our birthdays in a traditional way (we never do cake or presents). This year Jack really wanted to have a cake, 3 balloons and 3 candles. He was very adamant about the number of balloons and candles. Too bad Daniel is 34 for this year instead of 33.

On Daniel's actual birthday, we celebrated by having lunch at the Olive Bean Cafe on Signal Mountain. Daniel had an open face roast chicken sandwich while I tried the chorizo and potato frittata. Jack had a ham and cheese sandwich with a smoothie. All of it was on the lighter side, but delicious.

As an added bonus, we saw a woman riding a horse down James Blvd. while we enjoyed our lunch on the patio.

Friday night we celebrated by going to eat dinner at Cracker Barrel (where Daniel got a free slice of chocolate cake)...

and then we went on a short night paddle to the Nickajack Bat Cave. It was a fun, low-key evening.

Saturday night I made Daniel grilled salmon (per his request)...

and my family's traditional pistachio birthday cake (per Jack's request).

Sunday was more birthday celebrations when we met up to celebrate Daniel's dad's wife's birthday at Provino's Italian Restaurant. Her kids brought a cake, so we had 3 days in a row of cake. Jack was in cake heaven!

Pistachio Cake Recipe
My mom has been making this cake for over 40 years.

Cake Ingredients

• 1 white cake mix
• 1 pistachio pudding mix
• 3/4 cup oil
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup Sprite

Directions

• Mix for 3 min.Pour into greased 9x13 pan.
• Cook for 40 min. @ 350º (or 25 min if using 2 round 9" cake pans)
• Cool cake before icing.

Icing Ingredients

• 1 pistachio pudding mix
• 1 1/4 cup milk
• 8 oz cool whip

Directions

• Mix milk and pudding until combined.
• Add cool whip, then put on cake.
• If making a layered cake, put layer of icing between cake layers.

To The Bat Cave

For Jack's second paddling experience, we decided to take him on a group paddle to the Nickajack Bat Cave. Flat water, a cave, and bats seemed like a perfect combination for a family paddling excursion.

The Nickajack Cave is a wildlife refuge that provides sanctuary for endangered gray bats and is managed jointly by TVA and Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency solely for their protection.

This is a short paddle to be done close to dusk. We put in about an hour before sunset which gave us time to get up close to the cave, take some pictures and make sure Jack was comfortable on the water.

On the way to the cave Jack really wanted to hold a paddle, so we took turns letting him use our paddles. We are going to have to buy him a small paddle before our next outing.

Once the sun went down, the bats started their exodus from the cave. Jack wanted to know why the bats were coming out. So we repeatedly had to tell him that it was their supper time and they came out to eat bugs.

There were quite a few people at the cave to see the bats at dusk, but it wasn't overly crowded. A few people had pirate's flags on their kayaks and Jack spent the rest of the evening pretending to be a pirate.

Besides watching the bats, Jack enjoyed pretending to fish with a short piece of rope that he would throw into the water. He also thought that it was fun to shout into the cave, "Hello!" and "Anybody in there?" and hearing the echo come back to us.

The entrance to the cave is gated off, so we couldn't actually enter, but we could see in pretty far. When the bats came out, they tended to fly straight up the rock face and into the sky, as opposed to flying out onto the water into our faces.

The paddle back was in the dark, with a crescent moon overhead. We were on the water for about two hours and probably paddled about 2 miles according to MapMyRun.

Jack wanted to know if we could paddle home. Not this time, buddy. I hope Daniel enjoyed our family paddle for his 34th birthday.