Hurring up....

When we found out that Josh had to take off back to California we immediately knew that we had to DO a few things before he left.
The first one was to go to the Atlanta Aquarium!
So we went last weekend. It was Awesome! our whole family loves animals (especially Jr) and being the biggest aquarium in the world we got to see creatures that we've never seen before, the biggest hit with the kids was the Whale Sharks (they have 4 of them...wow!) and the other one was the Manta rays, (they have 2 of them) We enjoyed every minute of it.
A big THANKS to Grandpa Danny and Pilar!(Since this trip was a Christmas present from them:)


The second thing we HAD to do, was to have an Authentic Southern Meal!...
Some of you may wonder why we had not for the past 8 months?...Well... our plan was to live here for many many years so we thought that we'd have plenty of time to do that. Yes, we have tried some things here and there but not the whole thing...
So...we headed during the week to a well known place in town. And order as it follows; Fried Catfish, Collard greens, Coleslaw(which is sweet),Hush puppies, cheesy grits and sweet tea!
The fish was delicious so were the Hush puppies(I chose not think about the amount of fat we were consuming in ONE meal, so that I could enjoy it!) the rest of it was so so, neither of us is a fan of sweet tea but wanted to have the whole experience so we drank some of it. The only thing that was soooo hard to swallow were the cheesy grits(or as they called them Georgia Ice cream)
I actually though about changing our family rule about never spitting out food when trying it. Needles to say that the grits were send back almost intact.
We had a good time!
And yes...I have to go back for some more catfish and hush puppies!

What a day!

We had an incredible day yesterday. Even though the news had been announcing that we were going to have snow, we were very skeptical about it. I decided not to send my boys to school since they were going to be dismissed at 12:00.
So they got up in the morning and waited in front of the window for a few hours until the first flakes of snow started to fall, at which they threw on their robes and ran outside to taste said snow. It took hours for it to start sticking on the ground and because everything was closed down due to the weather, Josh came home at 2:00 from work, and that was just what we needed since his schedule has been changed, and now he has to work some days 12 1/2 hours. (because of the Toyota recalls)
After having a treat of "Black Bottom Banana Bars"(it's basically banana bread with unsweetened chocolate) my kiddos favorite, we cozied up with our snow gear and headed outside to play.
One of my best friends(she grew up shoveling snow in the winter...) told me once that she thought that God gave us the beach and the snow to see us play in it. And I whole heartedly agree.
We played outside for about 3 1/2 hours, from snow ball fights to making snow...figures and topping it off with my hubby's favorite thing to do. Offroading in the mud (but yesterday was more like brown slush) until our jeep was producing black exhaust smoke and there were no more huge puddles of mud...
We were reminded that there are a lot of hidden blessings in the common every day things that we take for granted.

NOW YOU SEE IT....

AND PRETTY SOOON YOU WON'T
I love simple thinking, and it's not because I'm a simpleton haha.
Jr -Mommy could you shave my head?-
Me -How come hon? Are you tired of your hair style?
Jr -No! I'm just tired of dealing with it, combing it in the mornings, drying it after taking a shower, too much work!
And so I did. It was a little hard to cut his nice soft hair.
(That took months to grow)

In the proces we had to play around with it and he also asked for a Samurai hair style...which lasted long enough for me to take a picture of it, and before his dad had a heart attack:-)


And here he is, the way most of you remember him since he was 3ish.