Adventures in Atlanta

I took the boys to Atlanta for 11 days and Greg joined us for the last 4.  The weather was (mostly) beautiful and the boys were much better behaved at Grandma and Grandpa's than last time (when Cameron would tackle Nate anytime his brother glanced at him and neither wanted to nap regularly).  However, getting there proved to be quite the adventure.

We left our house at around 5:15 am on a snowy Friday to catch our 7:30am flight to Atlanta.  Despite the slow and slippery drive, we got to the airport just fine.  We even ran into Greg's cousin Kelly and her family at the airport as they were on the way to Disney.  We were about to board the plane when I realized that I left the car seat in the terminal.  Young kids require a lot of stuff when traveling and it was bound to happen that I would forget something, but that was an expensive (and challenging) thing to forget.  Fortunately a nice airport employee found the car seat behind the ticket counter in the gate area we had been in (different from the gate area for our flight) after looking two times in the terminal for me.  Apparently somebody found it and put it back there for safekeeping.  What could have been an awful start to our trip was resolved with only some anxiety on my part!

Once on the plane, I broke out breakfast - leftover pancakes.  Because of our early flight time, the boys were able to wait until we were on the plane to eat.  I like to have them eat while we are taking off and landing to help keep their ears open.  However, because of the weather we had to get our plane de-iced so we didn't actually take off for an hour and a half after our scheduled time.  Ugh.  One of the reasons I'm brave enough to take the boys on an airplane by myself is that the flight to Atlanta is non-stop and only 2 hours long.  By the time we finally took off, we would have nearly been to Atlanta on our scheduled timeline.  But the boys were hanging in there and were fascinated by the pinkish liquid running down the windows as they de-iced our plane.

We finally took off for Atlanta around 9am.  Before we took off, I talked to my parents and my mom mentioned storms were moving into the Atlanta area.  So not surprisingly, when we got near Atlanta we ended up in a holding pattern north of the city.  Ironically enough, we were probably flying over my parents' house as they are north of the city.  Then because the storms still had not passed and we were running low on fuel, we had to land in Chattanooga, TN for a refueling.  While refueling, a mechanical issue was discovered so now not only did we need to wait for refueling, we needed to wait for a mechanic to look at and fix the mechanical issue.  Ugh.

After sitting on the plane in Chattanooga for about an hour and a half, we were allowed to deboard the plane thanks to recent FAA rule changes about how long passengers can stay in a plane on the tarmac.  Chattonooga is a small airport and does not typically have passenger jets of our size land there so we had to actually walk down a ramp from our plane and across the tarmac to the gate.  The boys loved that!

We finally made it to Atlanta 13 hours after leaving our house.  I was very grateful and proud that my kids did not melt down.  In fact, several passengers complimented me on their behavior (wish I could take full credit, but they were troopers!)  I am known for packing way too much food when I travel, but this was one of the times it paid off.

Once in Atlanta, we had a relaxing time.  Cameron missed a week of preschool and the unit they were studying was on fish so we did some fish related activities to "make up" his missed school (well what really happened is we went to the fish hatchery in my parents' neighborhood and that inspired me to do other fish themed activities - some of which were a bit of a stretch).  When we got home, Cameron (with my help) wrote about his fish themed vacation:

"While on vacation at my grandma and grandpa’s in Georgia, I got to do a lot with fish too.  I made this picture of fish by gluing tissue paper on to represent the fishes’ scales.  I did this after going to a fish hatchery full of brown trout and rainbow trout.  These fish will eventually be released into the Chattahoochee River and other streams and lakes in Georgia.  We fed them little pellets made of fish meal and high protein feed.  The fish would jump and splash to get at the food.  There were some fish over a foot long and weighing more than 10 pounds!  We also went to an Asian grocery store and saw live crabs, lobsters, eel, flounder, and other edible sea creatures.  I even tried some lobster that my grandma made and really liked it.  Those were just some of the highlights of my vacation." 
He attached his story to a picture he made of fish.

A few other highlights of our trip included:

- The train set in grandma and grandpa's basement.  Oh boy did they have fun playing with it!  And thank you so much to the Burie's who brought over their old train set that they don't use anymore so now Cameron and Nathan can play trains here at home whenever they want.  And they want to a lot!

 -  Not sure this is a "high"light, but while everybody back home in Wisconsin was digging out from the 4th Friday in a row of snow, we were huddled in my parent's basement riding out a nasty storm that spawned several tornadoes in Georgia.  My mom and I were out on the porch with the intention of bringing the chairs inside when the loudest clap of thunder I have ever heard scared the bejeebers out of us.  I ran inside knowing that Cameron would be spooked since I had just put him to bed about 10 mins before.  Sure enough, he was already out of his bedroom looking for anyone to comfort him.  Poor guy.  The sirens went off shortly thereafter.  Fortunately my parents city was spared and it was just a long hour of waiting it out.  Nathan slept through most of it and Cameron talked through most of it (maybe his nerves?).  

- The boys tried some new foods.  Both enjoyed the pork belly we had a ramen restaurant.  Yes, there is a restaurant that features ramen, but it is not your college student Top Ramen.  It is a really rich, decadent broth made from simmering pork belly.  They also had the delicious pork belly appetizer that the boys devoured.  Cameron also woofed down a bunch of lobster at dinner one night.  He can be a picky eater, but he seems to really like seafood.  Shrimp and lobster are his two favorites right now. 

I will apologize again for my delay.  I start my entries on time, but then it takes me weeks to finish them so they are old news by the time I get them posted!

Kristi and the boys