Praying!

One of my favorite pictures that my Grandmother has is a picture of my dad and my uncle saying their prayers before bed. That picture spoke volumes to me - not to mention it is just too cute! Ever since I saw that photo, I knew that I wanted pictures of my children as they said their nightly prayers. This is my favorite one so far! Before we tuck them into bed each night, Mikayla always goes into Drew's room and kneeels beside his bed and says "we gotta say our prayers". After our prayers, she goes to her bed and waits patiently for her turn to be tucked in "snug as a bug in a rug". It's hard to tell because of the flash on my camera, but it was dark in Drew's room with the exception for light from his t.v.

Atlanta Braves!

We knew that the Atlanta Braves wouldn't be playing in the pennant race this year, but that didn't stop us from enjoying ourselves at the game on Saturday, September 30! It was Fan Appreciation Weekend as they played the Houston Astros, and we had a ball! Drew and Mikayla as soon as we got to our seats! I think they were amazed with how big the stadium was! We had wonderful seats - we were in the lower section in the outfield 8 rows back from the field. We were almost directly behind center fielder, a little to the left of Braves Vision. Braves Center Fielder Andruw Jones was playing directly in front of us. Drew thought this was too cool - they have the same name you know! I apologize for the pictures being blurry - I was using my old digital cameras for these pictures. I had filled the card for my new camera at the aquarium - imagine that! Drew and Mikayla enjoy cotton candy at the game!MY Chipper Jones is playing third base! He did not start in this game, and when they announced the line-up I was a little bit bummed (to say the least)! When he came in at the beginning of the eighth inning, I couldn't stop snapping pictures! This is the best picture I could get from zooming in with old camera - no worries though, hopefully next year we will go back and our seats will be on the third base line directly behind him!! I wonder if you can check to see if he is playing before you book your tickets? HAHA

Drew and Mikayla in the van as we were getting ready to leave the stadium. You can tell by their faces that we had a wonderful time! They both got an Atlanta Braves shirt and a baseball with a picture of Chipper Jones along with his autograph (you know mommy had nothing to do with this)!!The Braves put up a huge fight to beat the Astros, even rallying in the ninth to come within a run. The game ended 5-4 in favor of the Astros. We still love the Braves, and plan on attending next season!!

Mikayla, Drew, and Mommy after loading up to head back to South Carolina on Sunday! We had a wonderful time in Atlanta visiting the Georgia Aquaruim and Turner Field for the first time! Hopefully Drew and Mikayla will never forget the time we spend as a family!

Georgia Aquarium

Our family took a mini vacation this past weekend to Atlanta! I had been wanting to take Drew to an Atlanta Braves game for awhile now. At first our plan was to take the kids to Stone Mountain Park and then to the Atlanta Braves. Then, another teacher at my school told us about the Aquarium back at the end of June when we were planning for this trip. She said that if we were going, we shouldn't miss the aquarium. I had planned to go the last weekend in July before school started back so that we could take a three-day weekend and we could go to Stone Mountain, the Aquarium, and an Atlanta Braves game. However, Craig did not want to sit out in the heat at the Atlanta Braves game in July so he talked me into putting it off until this past weekend! I still thought this would work out okay.

I had it all planned out - the most important part (to me) of Stone Mountain Park is the laser show/fireworks at the end so I planned for us to drive down Friday after we got home from work - arrive in time for the laser show/fireworks at Stone Mountain - from there go to the hotel - wake up Saturday morning to get to the aquarium when it opened - rest in the hotel before heading the the Braves game Saturday night - returning home Sunday. I ordered our tickets for the Aquarium and the Braves game at the end of June and our trip was set! Drew and Mikayla were so excited (not to mention how excited I was!) - it was so hard to wait the three months for the date to arrive!

Then last Thursday, I was checking the Stone Mountain website again (I checked before booking our other tickets to make sure that the park was opened Friday, September 29th and it was) to see what time the laser show would be that night to make sure we arrived on time. To my dismay, the laser show/fireworks only shows on Saturdays in September so we wouldn't be able to see that after all. Once I read that, we decided to stay here Friday night and take the kids to the high school football game! It ended up not being much of a game with our team not doing so well so we left during 3rd quarter to get home and get rest before our drive on Saturday.

As soon as we arrived in Atlanta on Saturday we headed straight to the Georgia Aquarium. For those who haven't been, it's a very nice aquarium. There are a lot of different animals there and lots for the whole family to do!

These are the fish (I forget their name) from the movie Finding Nemo that group together to form signs and such.

Drew and Mikayla have spotted something in one of the huge tropical tanks (Several of the tanks in the Aquarium were floor to ceiling tanks)!

Look at all those jellyfish! I sure am glad I'm on this side of the glass (right Jennie?)! This was another floor-to-ceiling tank full of jellyfish of all sizes.

One of the four HUGE whale sharks housed at the Georgia Aquarium! This one is swimming directly over our heads as we go through the tunnel.

This diver was cleaning out the bottom of this tank. We decided this would not be a job we would want (you can't tell in this picture but these fish have sharp teeth). But somebody's got to do it, right?

Our pretty girl rests in her stroller - but only for a moment! She stayed out of it more than she was in it. So much so that Craig kept questioning why we even brought the thing!

Drew watches an otter eat. He was laying on a pile of ice and Craig asked if the otters liked playing in ice. We were told that the workers at the Aquarium want the otters to work for their food so they put the food in different things. Today, their shrimp was put in ice pieces. We noticed a worker carrying two huge tubs of shrimp - these animals eat better than I do!

Mikayla and Drew pose with the Aquarium Mascot.

Drew and Mikayla (daddy too) climbed through a tunnel to be inside the penguin exhibit. Mommy had to get a picture of this - just look past the glare! If you look closely, you can see the penguin behind them on the rock (it almost looks like it's on top of Drew's head). This was one of their favorite parts of the Aquarium. You don't see penguins every day in South Carolina!

There were also two beautiful Beluga Whales at the Aquarium! I have a few good pictures of them, but for some reason Blogger won't let me upload them (maybe I've reached my max again). I'll try to upload a picture of them later - when I add pictures from the Braves game!!