"I've Seen Georgia On the Map. It's Purple!"

Part 2 of our road trip: Georgia (and a little more Alabamia)

Atlanta is only an hour and a half away from where we were staying in Alabama, so on the Monday after the wedding, I planned a day trip for us to go there to visit the Georgia Aquarium and Legoland.

The plan was to be at the aquarium when it opened at 9am, and we started out strong that morning. We pulled out of the parking lot of our hotel at 7:15, just like I wanted, and I was mentally giving myself high fives for getting everybody ready and on the road on time.  Then Ila chugged an entire bottle of orange juice in 10 minutes for some reason, we had to stop twice for her to go to the bathroom, and then somewhere along our drive, Dustin told me to look at the clock, and I noticed we lost an entire hour because I FORGOT ALLLL about the effing TIME CHANGE!!!!  So it was more like 10:30 when we finally walked through the aquarium doors.

But oh my goodness, the aquarium was amazing!!!!  I actually feel like it would be pointless for our family to ever go to another aquarium ever again, because it would just be a let down after seeing this one.  The Georgia Aquarium is the biggest aquarium in the U.S., the 4th biggest in the world, and the only aquarium in the Western Hemisphere to have whale sharks.

And seriously, standing in the tunnel and watching the giant whale sharks swim over you was WOW!!!

 James was not about to stop looking at the fish and turn around for a picture for me.

Even though we got a later start than I wanted that day, we hit it hard once we were there - the ocean exhibit, the tropical fish exhibit, the cold water exhibit, the river exhibit, the dolphin tank, the dolphin 4D movie, the sea lion show.  The best thing we did there though (in my opinion) was take the Behind the Scenes Tour.  We got to see the pump rooms, the labs, the operating and medical rooms for the sick animals, and we got to see the tropical fish exhibit and the ocean exhibit from the TOP.  That was incredible!  We were soooo close to the whale sharks as they swam by.

 the top of one of the tropical fish tanks

 one of the pump rooms

 animal operating room

 the lab

 the top of the ocean exhibit

 a whale shark swimming by

a whale shark swimming by

The highlight of the day for James was the tropical fish exhibit.  Holy moly, when he saw the clownfish and blue tang, he about lost it.  He started running, jumping, and screaming, "NEMO! NEMO! NEMO! DORY! NEMO! DORY! DORY!"  And then grabbing my face to make sure I was paying attention to him and screaming again, "NEMO! NEMO! NEMO!"  And running to bang on the glass and screaming again, "DORY! DORY! DORY!"  He did not stop shouting "NEMO! DORY!" the entire time that we were in the tropical fish exhibit.  It was adorable.  He was so dang happy.

omg, it's DORYYYY!

We spent about six hours at the aquarium, and we could've stayed longer, there was still so much to do, and looking back, I wish we would've stayed and watched more shows.  Butttt...

When planning this trip, I googled "Best things for kids to do in Atlanta" and read several articles.  Every. single. one. listed Legoland as a must-see.  So I was just like, "Cool!  There's a Legoland in Atlanta!", and without looking into it further, I planned for us to go there after the aquarium.

It consisted of two rides (they sucked), an area set up with lego tables, and an indoor jungle gym.  James was free, but it cost the rest of us $30 each to get in.  So $120 for our family to go there.  Oh yeah, there was a gift shop, of course.  They begged for something, so I told them that they could each pick out a lego set, and duh, we paid about triple the cost that we would've paid for the exact same stuff at Wal-Mart.

IN MY OPINION, we could've gone to Chick-fil-a, let the kids play in the play space there, and then bought them some legos from Wal-Mart and had the exact same experience for way cheaper.

IN MY KIDS' OPINIONS, it was AMAZING.  Ila and James ran all over that jungle gym and went down the slide approximately 1000 times.  Eden had a blast building lego cars and then racing them down the track.  They thought the sucky rides were SO COOL!

James would NOT go near Lego-Man.

And at the end of the day, that's all that matters I suppose.  The day was for them, and they thought it was the best day ever, Legoland included.  (But we will never go there again.)

I rate the Georgia Aquarium about 5 million stars though!  That was seriously incredible!

After Legoland, we drove back to Alabamia and ate dinner at Bow & Arrow, Caleb's restaurant.  My cousin Jonathan and his wife and kids met us there and we had a fun evening eating wonderful food and visiting with them.  Bow & Arrow was absolutely delicious, but that's not surprising at all seeing all the success Caleb has had in the food world!

 I do not know how people manage to take good food pictures.  I always manage to make my food look unappetizing, but I promise this was amazing!  I got brisket, hash brown casserole, collard greens, tortillas, a watermelon margarita, and banana pudding.  

All in all, a fantastic day!

back at the hotel with their souvenirs from the day :)

Alabamia!

Greetings from Home Sweet Texas!  We are back from our trip, and it was just as fun as I hoped it would be!  We got back late on Thursday night, and I've been recovering for the past three days - because even though it was super fun, road trips with young kids are not for the weak, and I've been TIRED!

I'm gonna break our trip into three posts - one for each state.  My title is "Alabamia" because that's how Ila says it.  I corrected her a few times, but then I gave up - partly because she wasn't catching on and partly because it's really cute when she says it!  "Are we in Alabamia yet?"

So the whole reason for our trip was because my cousin, Caleb, got married in Auburn, Alabama.

We left on Friday, July 5th at 6 am.

PAJAMA ROAD TRIP!  Pajama road trips are super fun until you're eating at an Olive Garden at 6 pm and you look homeless.

The kids did really good on the drive!  Usually I limit the amount of time they spend watching movies when we take long drives, but since we are trying to work our way through as many Disney movies as we can before our trip to Disney World, they watched movie after movie from Texas to Alabamia!  After our homeless Olive Garden dinner, we arrived at our resort in Opelika at 7:30ish pm.

Everybody was EXHAUSTED (it's amazing how tired you can get from just sitting in a car!), and we all fell asleep easily on Friday night!

When we booked our hotel for the wedding, we chose the Auburn Marriott Opelika Resort & Spa at Grand National solely because of their pool situation.  We knew the kids would have tons of fun there, and my brother and sister-in-law followed suit and stayed there too!

As soon as we woke up on Saturday, we put on swimsuits, went downstairs for breakfast, and then met up with Marshall's family at the pool!

James, Ila, Harrison, Eden

 Eden

My mom, Mark, and some of our family from Illinois ended up coming and hanging out at our resort as well, and while the kids swam, we all caught up with each other.  Around 1, we headed back to our room so that James could take a nap and we could shower and get pretty for Caleb's wedding!

So Caleb is an amazing chef!  He competed on Iron Chef as a sous chef to his boss (and their team won!), and he competed on the Spring Baking Championship in 2018 and made it to the finale episode.  Eden LOVED watching him compete each week, and she is a GIANT fan of his!  Prior to this trip, she hadn't seen him in about three years, and she was so excited to get to see him again!  It was a really nice wedding, and not only did Caleb get married, he did all the cooking for it AND made the cake!

It was such a fun evening!  Caleb is the baby of the cousins on my mom's side and the last to get married.  I'm so happy that we made the trip to see it and got a chance to visit with so much family at the reception!

Eden wrote Caleb a note telling him that she hoped he had a nice wedding, and she was so happy to give it to him and talk to him since his "tv debut".

Ok, so the year that Caleb was on the Spring Baking Championship, a guy named Nacho won.  He and Caleb became really good friends.  I was a HUGE Nacho fan!  Obviously I wanted Caleb to win, but Nacho seemed so nice and fun and funny, that when he won, I was still really happy with the outcome!  He was at the wedding, and I was eyeing him all night.  Dustin kept asking if I wanted to go talk to him, but I didn't want to bother him.  Towards the end of the night, Dustin spotted him and his wife leaving.  He told me, "Now's your last chance!"  I ran out the door, yelled "Nacho!", went up to him and introduced myself.  He was SO NICE!  I was a total fangirl and even asked if I could take a picture with him and his wife.  (His wife won the Spring Baking Championship another year.)

end of the night, outdoor July wedding, I was a sweaty mess!

The day after the wedding, my cousin, Jonathan, and his wife, Kelli, hosted a brunch at their house for all of us out-of-towner family members.  Marshall and his family had to leave early that morning to get back to Texas, but the rest of us cousins were there and even a few of our second cousins.

It's our tradition when we are together to line up in age order:

and height order:

and then we took a picture with all of our spouses:

Got one of the next generation too:

That afternoon, Dustin went and played golf with my cousin, Jonathan, and I took the kids back to the resort to swim some more.  My mom, Mark, my Aunt Kristi, and Uncle James all came too.

And thus ends a great couple of days and Part 1 of this trip!

Summer Moments

Happy 4th of July!  We actually didn't do anything today except PACK because we are leaving bright and early tomorrow morning for our drive to ALABAMA for my cousin, Caleb's wedding.  I cannot wait!  I love road trips!  We are driving to Alabama tomorrow, spending a couple of days there for the wedding and to visit with family, then we are spending a day in Georgia to go to the aquarium in Atlanta, and then we are driving back to Mississippi and spending a day there before coming home.  We are all so excited!  It took me HOURS today to get everything packed and ready (James made it difficult), and then we spent some time in the pool this evening and Dustin made hot dogs and hamburgers for dinner so that it felt a little 4th-ish.  Now the kids are asleep, and I'm doing a quick post before getting some sleep myself!

Eden has been going nonstop this summer!  She went straight from school to swim team.  The day after swim team was over, we left to spend our week in Matagorda and she did her Gulf Coast Camp.  And then the day after we got home from Matagorda, she started Art Camp!  She was there every day last week from 10-3, and on Friday afternoon, my mom and I went to go see her "art show".

first day

 last day

Eden also had her very first ever sleepover at a friend's house on Saturday!  My girl is growing up!

While she was gone, Ila and I had a Spa Night!

I turned 33 and Dustin turned 34 on the 2nd.  I had such a good day!  My mom came and stayed with the kids that morning, and I went and got a pedicure, a facial, and a haircut.  Then that evening, Dustin and I took the kids to see Toy Story 4.  I am such a big Toy Story fan!  I remember going to see the first one in theaters with my parents when it came out, and now here I am, taking my own kids to see the 4th one!

James's first time going to the movies!  He spilled popcorn everywhere, but overall, he was pretty good!

Bedtime!  See ya soon, Alabama!