spring break

while the rest of the world headed to the beach last week, we packed up and headed to the awesome spring break destination of....wait for it....atlanta.  what?  you didn't know atlanta was the new place to be.  yeah well....give my kids a hotel, and they are happy.  come to think of it, maybe we should have just gone down the street and stayed at a hotel!!  oh well.  too late now!

we made it halfway before we stopped at a cracker barrel for a checkers break.  and candy.  and sweet tea.  who says i'm not a fun mom???  :)

then after we got back on the road, we got off at the very next exit so reed could go to the bathroom.  yes, you read that right.  

anyway, we made it to atlanta around 7, and we wanted some serious culinary perfection for supper because we were all starving.  so we went to the varsity.  hot dogs all around.  

for those that have never been, it is just a big grease pit.  but we went for the experience.  and i hope my kids remember it because i don't really ever have to go again!  ha!  but their orange shake special dessert thing was pretty tasty!!  :)  

the little people checked out every nook and cranny of the hotel when we arrived.  after we assured wes  that the valet parking people were in fact not taking our car away forever, he was happy to get on with the night!  

after breakfast the next morning, we played in centennial park for a little while before we went into the aquarium because it was supposed to rain later that day.  

then we went through security and made our way into the aquarium with these nuts.  

let me just say that i was not expecting the georgia aquarium to be that awesome.  it was great!  except for the one playground area that reed was not tall enough to play on, we had a fabulous time.  they especially liked the stingrays.

i liked the lion fish and the otters!

the dolphin show was great, and it was a nice break to sit down and watch it for 30 minutes!  but as soon as it was over, we went to the ocean section because wes was not going to be happy unless he saw the sharks!  so going through the tunnel and watching the whale shark swim over him was the highlight of the day!

after we watched the 3D movie, we had pretty much seen everything there was to see.

it was a great thing to do for kiddos.  it took us most of the day to go through the entire place.  we left for lunch and came back in to finish it up.  and then we walked back to the hotel and everybody looked something like this....

the next morning, we went to try out the legoland discovery center.  if you think a box of legos is expensive, go buy 5 tickets to this place plus 3 stamp pad thingies to collect stamps in each room.  daddy was happy, happy, happy!!!!  :)  it would have been a really neat place for our 3.  they were the perfect ages.  if they were any older, i don't think they would have liked it so much.  but....it was so stinking crowded with field trippers that it just wasn't that much fun...for me!  they liked it!!  

before i had a panic attack from all the snotty noses around me, we left to meet aunt holly and alexandra for lunch.  we went to this crazy place that has all these birds in cages outside.  and before i know it, william has a bird on his head.  

have i ever mentioned my hatred of birds?  ok.  hate might be a strong word.  i don't mind birds that are flying around OVER THERE.  just stay the heck away from me.  those creepy claws and beaks.  and dirty feathers.  stay in your cage, bird!  well...the next thing i know, wes has a bird on his head.  followed by reed who refuses to move an inch with that crazy thing on his head.

and i don't really know what happened next because one minute i was looking at the menu, and the next that freaky bird was on my shoulder flapping his wings into the side of head.  y'all.  it's a wonder i'm still alive.  it's really a wonder that bird is still alive.  for the love.  i didn't want to go all psycho in front of my kids and my niece and kill the bird, so i managed to just bury my head in my arms and try not to hyperventilate until they got that durn bird off of me!  thankfully, i recovered, and the food was really good!!  much better than a hot dog!  

so while all of y'all got some sun at the beach, our spring break is filled with memories of sharks and legos.  and we are just going to pretend that birds played no part in it!!