July 1, 2010

On our last night in Atlanta, we had an impromptu dinner to say goodbye to the friends we had made. The boys had a great time over the last six months with all the 'baybeees' and I am so thankful for all the girl time with Jen, Melissa and Emily. Jen and Justin lived next door to us and we saw each other almost every single day. We lived in a great location for walks to Target (and Starbucks!), trips to the mall and walking on the Greenway. Since we shared a wall of our townhouses, naptimes were so much more fun because we could just bring our monitors over to each other's house while we hung out and the kids slept. We loved living next to Jen and Justin and have to keep telling ourselves that even if we had stayed in Atlanta, we wouldn't live next to each other forever. It softens the blow just a little : )

Jen (Justin), Melissa (Bryson), Me (Owen/Eli), Emily (Austin)

June 27, 2010

Seeing a Braves game at Turner Field has been on our list of things to do since we moved to Atlanta. With only four days left, we thought we should probably make it happen sooner rather than later! Sunday's game included a 'Kids Run the Bases' event, which was a bit of a production since they were still (technically) too young and we had to figure out how to get the double stroller on and off the field, but it all worked out and (despite the heat) we had a great time. The boys were even up on the JumboTron!!

June 25, 2010

This week is going to be one of saying goodbye. We met up with Kim and Cary and their kids, Zach and Ellie, for dinner for the last time in a long time. We've known them for at least the last five years when we all lived in Pittsburgh together and just happened to share Atlanta for the last six months. Hopefully our paths will cross again in the future; we're gonna miss them!

Zach (2yr 9mo) Owen & Eli (1yr 10mo) and Ellie (9mo)

June 5, 2010

We took a trip to TN this weekend to see Great Smoky Mountains National Park and stopped at this awesome river for some rock-walking and water-wading on the way. The boys loved it and are turning into little men with each new adventure they take. The big highlight for this excursion was throwing rocks into the water - the bigger the better. I had to laugh out loud at some of the rocks they were attempting to pick up to throw - I'm not sure I could have picked them up, let alone a 21 month old kid! The ducks were also a big hit, especially for Eli ('duts! duts!')

May 20, 2010

Webb Bridge Park is one of our favorite evening destinations. They have an amazing sandbox and a perfect sized playground for the boys. There are always sand toys there to play with and on the weekends they turn on the stream that flows through the play area. So fun!

May 15, 2010

We took a trip to visit Stone Mountain and were thoroughly impressed. Did you know Stone Mountain is home to the world's largest piece of exposed granite? The carved surface is the equivalent size of three football fields and the carvings of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and 'Stonewall' Jackson are recessed 42 feet into the granite. Little bit of history for you : )

We had a great time letting the boys run around on the open lawn, and they loved watching the trams carry passengers up to the top of the mountain. They kept calling them airplanes and choo-choos, and I guess to a 20 month old, that's basically the definition of a tram: a cargo car of people flying in the air.

May 8, 2010

We found the jackpot of all activities for little boys in Atlanta! The Peachtree-DeKalb Airport lets visitors come to watch the planes take off and land, there's a playground and a little cafe to grab a snack. The boys have been completely interested in airplanes ever since we rode one to Michigan for Easter, so we thought they would probably have a pretty good time. Owen's 'a-aaa!' 'a-aaa!' means airplane and we heard it nonstop the whole time we were there. It was tough to get him to look for a picture too because the moving planes kept stealing his attention. What a great day trip! Notice the difference between the first video and the second - in the first you can tell that Owen is a little overwhelmed by the noise and activity; by the second video, he was in love!

May 7, 2010

We tried out a new walking trail in Alpharetta and love it! It's called the Greenway and the 6-mile paved path through the woods proved to be about 10 degrees cooler than the temperature in the sun. It was a huge relief for the 90 degree day we had on Friday, but even at 10am in the woods, 80 degrees and humid is too hot for the first week of May. We'll have to start even earlier next time!

We came across a tiny baby snapping turtle, which is apparently pretty rare in these parts (as told by another walker who wanted to see what we were looking at). He was pretty cute, but can supposedly reach about 30 pounds and break through a broom handle with the snap of his jaw. Yikes!

May 1, 2010

We took a little trip over to Marietta, GA on Saturday to check out a little arts festival that was going on. It happened to be a 'Go Girl Festival', but that didn't stop us from having a great time! There were tons of great kid friendly vendors, a dance show and a train they could climb. Here's a quick video of Eli, who is physically incapable of not dancing when he hears music. He's got the fever!

April 17, 2010

The Centennial Park area of downtown is such a cool place to hang out. Centennial Park was built so all the people coming for the Atlanta Olympics would have somewhere to spend time during their stay. They have fountains that spray to music, an awesome playground and tons of events, not to mention it's right across the street from the CNN Tower, the World of Coke Museum and the Aquarium.

Minus the 300 middle schoolers who were touring the World of Coke with us, it was a pretty cool museum. The last stop is the tasting room, where you can sample sodas from six continents. We found our favorites, but then stopped by for the original, American coke. Yum!

I'm not sure who took this picture, but I think it's so fun! Ashley is only four weeks behind me and just found out she's having a little boy too! They'll be best buds : )

April 16, 2010

What a great weekend!! Steve and Ashley came for a visit from Pittsburgh and we had such a great time! We were busy the whole weekend, but had tons of great food, stopped at some of the touristy parts of town and had a great time catching up with our friends.

We went to the Georgia Aquarium, the largest in the country (which probably also means in the world) and saw some pretty amazing sea animals. They even had Beluga Whales! The boys were pretty terrified by all the huge tanks, but they liked watching the lights and the waterfalls, so it wasn't a complete loss. At least we didn't have to pay for them ; )

The aquarium started with a tropical room, complete with stinging nettles, jellyfish, every tropical fish ever created and NEMO! There was a reef diver feeding the fish while we were watching too, which freaked the boys out! It was probably my favorite room though - so many colors, sizes and types of fish!

These first couple pictures are funny. They wouldn't stand by themselves at first because they didn't like being that close to the tanks. I don't think they realized that the fish couldn't get out. Eli would eventually stand on his own, but if you'd touch him at all, he'd sit down immediately and refuse to get up on his own. Owen was beside himself when he saw the diver in the tank. He buried his head into my neck and held on for dear life!

The highlight of their day - NEMO!

March 27, 2010

We'd been seeing signs at the park for the Alpharetta Children's Festival for the last few weeks, and since the weather was nice we decided to go check it out. The only problem was, we assumed it was at THAT park, because the sign didn't say otherwise. So we showed up, and quickly realized we needed to head to the other side of town. It was minivan central and parking was insane.. no surprise. We headed straight for the petting zoo!

Both boys were curious at the beginning, but once the animals turned in our direction, they were a little spooked.

The trick was "helping" them pet the animals. Here's Owen petting a donkey.

Eli petting a cow.
Alpharetta's finest fire crew is all ready to battle the next big blaze!