Myrtle Beach Trip 2008

We spent last week with the Aldersons at Myrtle Beach. Here are a few pictures of our time there. (sorry, they are not in the correct order)

Ella plays the 18th hole.

Stephanie and Ella getting ready to putt-putt.

Trent and Grant are ready!


Erika, Ella, Trent, and Grant

I took this after we had just climbed all the stairs to the top of the putt-putt course.




Ella must have won the hand



Erika on the board and Ella pushing.


We ate dinner at Margaritaville and Ella wanted me to take her picture with the parrot mask.

Broadway at the Beach

The car ride home






This is how Trent spent most of his time while at the ocean. He really loves his boogie board...thank you Pops and Purson!





Bill with Erika and John with Ella

Saturday in Atlanta

Today Pops and Purson took us to Lenox Mall to ride the infamous Macy's Pink Pig of Atlanta. This is a holiday tradition for all "homegrown" Atlantans...some of the people my mom works with told her about it and shared their many memories of riding the pig when Rich's deparment store was still in business. It seems that the original pink pig (the original pig began sometime in the 50's from what we can gather) would travel on a steel line around the ceiling of the toy department in Rich's and the children would be able to look down and pick out what they wanted while they rode. It later was moved outside, and when Rich's was bought-out by Macy's in the 1990's it was moved to the top level of the parking garage at Lenox Mall. The pink pig we saw today was not the original but the original is on display in the same tent as the "new" pink pig train. It was quite a different experience, but lots of fun! Here are a few video clips and photos of our day. As you will be able to tell from the pictures, the train is housed in a large tent with LOTS of pink...pink lights, pink carpet, pink rails and fences. IT GLOWS PINK!

This is a picture of the original Pink Pig that sits next to the current train tracks. This pig (the original) actually ran by hanging on a steel track - like the Big Bad Wolf roller coaster at Busch Gardens in Virginia.

Daddy, Trent, and Ella wait for their ride on the Pink Pig.

This was Trent and Ella's first ride on the Pink Pig. Of course, Pops made sure they got a TWO RIDE ticket!

HERE IS A SHORT VIDEO CLIP OF THEIR FIRST RIDE:

Because Pops and Purson like to spoil their grandkids, here is a photo and video clip of their second ride. Trent was very excited that he got to sit in the very front of the pig!

After taking both train rides we went out of the tent and Chevy was sponsoring free face painting. Trent got a dragon and Ella wanted a flower, but when she got to the chair she wouldn't let the lady touch her face so she has a pretty flower painted on her arm.

JOHN VISITS CHICK-FIL-A!!!

What an exciting day in our family's history!!! We visited the Chick-fil-A corporate headquarters in Atlanta!!! Thanks the wonderful managers at our Chick-fil-A we had a personal guided tour, complete with a visit to Truett Cathy's office (unfortunately he was not in this afternoon), a view of the corporate gym and cafeteria, and (Trent's favorite) a chance to see the BATMOBILE!!

Truett Cathy purchased the Batmobile and drove it into the hall of cars himself. His Batmobile is only one of three from the movie "Batman Returns." The Batsuit is only one of 500 from the same movie.

This picture was taken in the Chick-fil-A Museum in a model of Truett Cathy's first restaurant. If you would like to know the entire history of Chick-fil-A please email or call John and he can tell you everything he knows.

It was a great tour and I'm glad that we were able to finally go. It is such a neat place and it would probably be a wonderful place to work.

Visiting Abby

Yesterday, we spent most of the day hanging around the house and relaxing and then we took off down I-75 to go see Abby. Most of you know that Abby just moved to Macon last month for work, so the kids and I wanted to go and see her new apartment and her office. Luckily, Person was able to join us on our short road trip.

The Fernbank Museum

Today, the kids and I went to the Fernbank Museum downtown. This was the first day that I actually drove into the downtown area on I-75. What an experience!! I've determined that Atlanta traffic on the interstate only has 2 speeds-either you go really slow in bumper to bumper traffic OR you go really fast (and by really fast I mean 75 to 80mph when it's listed 55mph). Today I had the priveledge of being able to drive in both.

When we got onto I-75 at 11:00 this morning it was bumper to bumper for about 2 miles due to an accident. The rest of the time I felt like I was the turtle on the interstate, and I was driving at 75 mph. But I soon became accustomed to my surroundings and it didn't seem so bad. I've also realized that going 20 mph over the posted speed limit is not as big of a deal here in the "big city" as it is on I-81. I have to admit, by the end of our outing I was the one breezing past those "turtles."

So anyway...our visit to the Fernbank was very much enjoyable. I had done a little searching on the internet about this museum prior to today and thought it sounded like a nice place to visit. I was also excited that if I bought a membership at the Fernbank it would be accepted at the Science Museum at home also. And even better than that...I was able to save $10.00 on the membership since I am a teacher! So our family now has full membership priveledges at the museum until July 2008. And that's a good thing because there was no way we were going to be able to see the entire museum today - we will have to go back again to finish it at a later date.

Below are some of the pictures I took while we were there. The kids and I had a great time and I look forward to taking John back this weekend to see their IMAX movie titled "Wired to Win: Surviving the Tour de France." By the way sweetie...if you want to see a trailer for it check this out http://www.wiredtowinthemovie.com/

Trent and Ella both practiced being weather forecasters on the green screen. Trent thought it was very neat that the weather forecasters don't see the pictures on the wall, instead they have to look at the t.v. monitors in front of them. Ella was not as enthusiastic about being on t.v.

Both of the kids had a great time making gigantic bubbles.

One of the special exhibits at the Fernbank this summer is called "Lizards and Snakes." This was a really neat exhibit that had a special area with all kinds of hands-on learning materials for kids to play with. No, Ella and Trent are not holding real, live reptiles...they are just dressed as herpetologists ready to study the plastic look alikes.

The final stop today was in the kid's play rooms. Each room was designed for a specific age group - one for preschoolers and the other for school agers - and teaches kids about the different wildlife in Georgia. The kids both agreed that this was the best part of the day. Here, Ella is pretending to help the bees carry pollen from one flower to another...and she would still be doing this if Iwould've let her. The child drops a ball into one of the two flowers on the sides and the ball goes through the tube back down to the middle flower to be picked up again. Ella figured out how it worked and then tried to see how fast she could do it.

Next door in the school age room, Trent learned how to fish and about the different types of animals that are in the rivers and lakes around Georgia.

So that was our day! Check back soon for more updates.

Monday Pool Fun!!

Today was just a sit-around-and-do-nothing day complete with a trip to the pool. As many of you have read in previous posts Ella is not very fond of the water. However, today she made her first steps towards the water...she sat in the boat and she allowed Trent to squirt her with the water gun. Just wanted to share a few pictures for you to enjoy. Check back again soon!

The Georgia Aquarium

Today we went to the Georgia Aquarium with Pops and Person. It was very exciting, but there were a lot of people. Fortunately, we had advanced tickets for 11:00 this morning so we didn't have to stand in line like yesterday at Coke. The Aquarium is fairly new so it stays quite busy. And it has the only Whale Shark display in North America. Ella said her favorite thing was the fish and the penguins.

This is the Aquarium's mascot "Deepo."

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One of the best displays is the Beluga Whale tank. I believe they have about 4 of them at this time. They act very much like dolphins and were very friendly as you can tell from this picture I was able to snap of Trent.

Another neat thing that the Aquarium offered was the opportunity to touch several of the animals, like the horseshoe crabs and shrimp! Even Person touched the shrimp!!

One of Ella's favorite things about our visit was the play area. There was an indoor Whale Slide, playground, and tube maze.

Here are 2 short videos of the kids enjoying the Aquarium.