Week Two

We are closing in on Week Two of our Summer Trip.  This week we have been in Birmingham with my mother in law.  The kids love Birmingham and so do I!  Such a pretty, mountainous area.  There is so much to do here, but this week we have really just been chilling out - going to the park, playing in the backyard, and just hanging out.  We did decide that we needed one "big" day, though, so yesterday we piled in the car (as if we haven't had enough of that) and drove to Chattanooga.  It is a couple of hours away.  Surprisingly enough, the kids were the BEST behaved yesterday that they have been the entire trip. Car travel with Graham is typically not that easy.  He just can't be still in the car and when you max out a Suburban, you can imagine that it is crowded and the older kids do not appreciate being crawled all over on a car ride.

We left early yesterday morning, so everyone slept all the way to Rock City.  If you drive through this area of the South you always see signs that say "See Rock City" - it seems that the red birdhouse with the black roof is their trademark.  Well, I have never actually seen Rock City, even after all those roadside requests, so I decided that we would do just that.  I was very impressed.  It was a beautiful walk, through cool, mossy caverns, really tight squeezes in some spots.  A swinging rope bridge, high enough to delight the boys as they jumped up and down trying to scare their GG and me too death!  The view from the top was incredible!

After leaving Rock City, we headed over to the Covenant College Campus.  My older kids are considering attending there and they have been to a couple of preview weekends, but I have not been able to go.  The campus is less than two miles from Rock City, so we had to make a quick stop.  It is a small, but gorgeous campus and we tooled around for a little while.  They enjoyed showing the rest of us the halls where their friends live and the buildings where they have attended classes during Preview Weekend.  We will see where God leads them, but I would be very happy if Covenant is their choice.

After that we had lunch and then headed to the Tennessee Aquarium.  It is located on the riverfront and it was a lot of fun.  All of my kids love aquariums and Patrick is NO exception.  He stood up on the viewing steps and squealed and laughed at every exhibit.  So cute to watch them discover things at this age.

I do have one funny story from our day that I want to share.  You kind of had to be there, but maybe you can get a visual.  We are packed, fully maxed out in our HUGE Suburban.  My kids travel with blankets and pillows to the point that you would think we fully intend to sleep in our car.  Between that and all the baby apparatus (blankets, food, diaper bag, toys) all over the floor, you just can't move in the car.  To top it off we have to travel with a luggage "shell" thing on top of the car because we can not get all of our travel necessities in the back.  I always forget about the box on top of the car and thankfully, most drive thrus have a high enough clearance for it.  Yesterday, we were driving all over downtown Chattanooga looking for a place to eat lunch.  We did not realize that there were tons of restaurants right around the aquarium.  We found a place that had lots of shopping and a couple of restaurants, so we decided to eat there really quick.  The only place to park was a parking deck.  I scooted in, oblivious to the scraping sound from the hanging bar that was trying to tell me that even though I was getting in, I would not be able to get out!  I parked the car, realizing when we got out that we were really, really (REALLY) close to hitting the ceiling.  We ate and then proceeded to exit on the opposite side.  Immediately I realized that we were NOT going to fit out of the only exit.  We climbed out, measured, backed up and tried every angle to finagle the car out.  Of course, people are passing by shaking their heads and chuckling.  My mother in law and I started laughing hysterically.  Our older kids are thankfully not embarrassed too easily, so they were laughing along as well.  I think I pushed it a little when a random lady walked by and smiled sympathetically and I between gaffs of laughter started telling her how we managed to be in this predicament.  (I don't think she cared)  Anyway, finally a security guard took pity on us and opened the entrance gate for us to exit the way we came.  I think he considered calling the police when I almost....well, I did actually - exit onto the one way street - the WRONG way!  Thankfully, I realized it quickly and recovered before we actually drove down the road.  We left him in the dust, shaking his head.  Kind of like my husband does when I do goofy things - which somehow I manage to do frequently.

Anyway, maybe you can get some mental picture of that.  If you know me, I'm sure you can!  

Otherwise, our only other predicament was a horrendous rainstorm about 40 miles from Birmingham.  I have an irrational fear of driving in the rain and this was so bad even my kids admitted it (and they usually think I am nuts for being so afraid of driving in the rain.)  It took us forever to get home, we ended up leaving the interstate and driving on flooded back roads.  Did I mention that Birmingham is mountainous??  After much prayer, white knuckles, and tense, tense muscles we made it!!

Tomorrow I get to see my hubby after 13 days!!!  We have missed him SO much.  Next week we spend most of the week in the NC mountains with my family!  More to come!

Happy Summer!