Chattanooga- Day 1

After our plans for a vacation at Fort Walton Beach were thwarted by the oil spill disaster, we decided to stay inland and spend our family vacation in beautiful Chattanooga, Tennessee. Chattanooga is actually very kid friendly and only a couple of hours from our house, so it was ideal. Grandpa and Sessy met us there on Friday and we immediately went over to visit the Tennessee Aquarium, which is one of the largest in the world. It is split into 2 buildings: Ocean Journey and River Journey.

This male penguin kept bringing the female rocks for the nest that she's sitting on. Each time he brought her a rock he would put it down and then make a noise at her as if to say "is this enough yet?" and she would just close her eyes and turn her head away, and then he would go get another one and do the same thing over again.

Shark Bait!!

The Ocean Journey had hundreds of different jellyfish and other invertebrates (A.K.A. Boneless Beauties)

Once you get down to the bottom floor, the ceiling is glass and you can watch the fish swim above you.

There are little nooks where you can lay down and watch the fish swim over you. The boys crawled into one with some very nice and patient teenagers.

Some juice and tickle time...

Tennessee River

Touch tanks are always a hit in this family.

The boys were pretty exhausted by the end, but I could have stayed for a lot longer, there was so much to see. We will definitely be back!

Hot Hot Heat!

With temperatures in the 90's lately, we have been doing everything we can to keep cool, which means a lot of outdoor water play. On Saturday we went to the zoo, which happens to have some of those randomly spurting fountains that kids (and some adults) love to play around in.

Right next to the fountains they have a thing that you can pay to go in that has piles and piles of foam to play in. So far we haven't tried it out, I figure the boys will get enough experience with foam parties on Spring break in college. Whenever the wind blew, some of the foam would come over the side and the kids would run after it.

After drying off, the boys went for a ride on the carousel.

Then we went for a walk in an area of the zoo known as "Alabama Wilds." We usually skip over this area, because it's a little boring (beavers, turtles, birds, etc..), but it was a perfect day to walk in the shaded woods.

There is a little dinosaur fossil dig place that I had forgotten about.

At the end of the trail is a rustic log-cabin that you can explore.

And then, of course, the Outhouse...

Sunday was even hotter, so we broke out the sprinklers again. This time Rob had the genius idea to set it up on the front lawn, that way we're watering the grass instead of the drive way. I'm not sure why we didn't think of this before.

The boys love this thing. Even I put on my suit and joined them for a little while (not pictured).

Finally, here is a picture that Beck drew of the "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse." You can see Mickey, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, and the rest of the gang.

You can tell who they are, right??!! This picture cracks me up, as do most of the things that Beck does lately. Yesterday at lunch, Beck pointed to the almonds on his plate and said "Daddy, these almonds are driving me nuts!" We love our little guys. It's so much fun watching them grow up and develop their creativity and humor.