So, the blog has been a dark and barren space with no posts or comments for a while. The ever dwindling blog activity has been thanks to an angry lap top, which grew ever angrier over the past couple of months thanks to about 16,000 photos stored on its original hard drive space with no more room to breathe. After about three years with my beloved MacBook, it was time to bring in some professional help. With no Apple store around and no desire to drive a long distance to an Apple store in order to be treated with condescension and disdain from hipster Apple store employees, the task was prolonged until it was almost too late. Luckily, an Apple distributor opened up in town, and the tech working there saved my I-photo library before it disappeared into a virtual poof.
Now, my many thousands of pictures reside safe and sound on an external hard drive which is probably going to be outdated in a few minutes because I'm too suspicious of storing my precious photos in Flicker or the "cloud" that all the kids are using these days. So, here I am, two weeks into the start of the school year, with a summer recap.
Scrolling through these pictures is already causing me to mourn the loss of summer, but I find solace in the fact that there will always be another summer to enjoy before I know it, and thanks to an obscenely early start date to our school year, the next summer will again start before Memorial Day (silver lining to starting back to school in the middle of the dog days).
So, without further ado, let the mega summer recap post begin.....
We took a short trip down the road to Atlanta at the beginning of July to enjoy some of the tourist spots the city has to offer. Jacks has reached an age where he loves driving through big cities, and he is really able to take it all in.
The trip began at the Varsity for lunch, of course, because a trip to Atlanta is never complete without some Varsity dogs, some frozen oranges, and a couple of paper hats.
Next up was the Children's Museum, which was a little over priced (more expensive for all of us than the Coke Museum) but very worthwhile. They have lots of fun, interactive exhibits. Here is a little peek at the kids having fun there....
After some good, educational fun at the Children's Museum, we spent about an hour in line at the Coke Museum (not the best place for small children who shouldn't be drinking Coke, but the kids still LOVED it - Nealy will never be the same after that tasting room. She quickly created a red mustache from sugary drinks and she took to dancing all around that sticky floor).
We spent the night at the nearby Hampton Inn located across the street from Georgia Tech. We didn't realize this, but if you get a city facing room in one of the upper floors, you end up with a pretty impressive view of the city. We spent our evening watching fireworks above the stadium, spotlights arcing into the sky, and a lightning show courtesy of mother nature. Not bad for an affordable hotel room....
We got up and at 'em the next morning to hit up the Georgia Aquarium before driving back to Auburn. I think we will make an annual visit to the Aquarium. It is far preferable to visiting a hot zoo in the summer time, and both the kids LOVE it there. They could watch those tanks all day long.
You can see how much I enjoyed being so close to that albino alligator. It doesn't even look real, and then it blinks and totally freaks me out.
And, Joe was, as usual, our amazing photographer. Here is proof that he was with us....
You will notice that our feet are cut off, which is our biggest photo pet peeve and the main reason we hardly ever get other people to take our picture (they just can't do it right....).
Of course there was an Ikea visit squeezed in there, too, but no one needs to see pictures of me going nuts for Swedish bargains. (what can't those people do?).
When we arrived back home, it was time for the 4th of July. We spent the weekend in Atlanta, so we had not planned a single thing for the actual day of the 4th. So we basically spent it at home being lazy, then the power went out for a while so we went over to the city pool to keep cool for the afternoon. Then it occurred to us that we didn't have any sparklers or anything like that, so we took a short drive down the interstate to the outrageously huge fireworks store.
For the city sponsored fireworks, we outfitted the back of the pick up with blankets and pillows and drinks and popcorn, and we parked up at the kids' school. I've never been so close to fireworks before in my life!! The kids were amazed, and we had to clean up shards of ash from the truck before pulling out into traffic.
About a week later, we enjoyed our sweet friend Winsley's fourth birthday with an Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter themed tea party. It was one of the cutest themes I've ever seen, and all the kids there had a blast.
The birthday girl was dressed as Alice, complete with little black mary janes on her little feet.
There was a photo booth with lots of fun dress up items, and Nealy made it her job to make use of all of them (in fact, we had to come home with the bunny nose or else Nealy was going to literally lose her marbles).
The rest of the summer was spent in swim lessons, soccer camp, art camp and art classes, visiting the city pool, and just general being silly and lazy around the house. It was too hot outside to play in the yard without a sprinkler directed on you. So here's a glimpse into our around the house fun.....
This post to be continued......blogger isn't letting me load any more photos on to this post. I told you this was going to be obscenely large.....
