Trip to Chattanooga and Atlanta

Craig had the last week of August off in between externships so we decided to take a trip.  We knew we were going to go to Atlanta to see Boise State play, but we decided to stop at Chattanooga, TN on our way. So we left Memphis on Wednesday the 27th and drove the 4 1/2 hours to Chattanooga.  Brooklyn did pretty well on the drive.  We only had to stop once for her to get out and run around about half way through the drive.  We stopped at some random gas station and ate our PB&J's at some picnic table and let Brooklyn run around for a while.

After lunch we finished our drive.  We were hoping that Brooklyn would sleep for a little while and she tried really hard, but she has a really hard time sleeping in her car seat.  Once we got to the hotel she took a short nap and then we headed downtown to walk around and grab some dinner.  I don't remember what the place was called that we ate dinner, but it had the most amazing chicken, bacon, mac and cheese.  Yes it was probably a million calories, but it was the best mac and cheese i have ever had and was worth every calorie.  After dinner we walked over to the Tennessee river and walked across a pedestrian bridge.  There were a lot of runners and walkers out and a lot of people with their dogs, so Brooklyn was in heaven.  All she wanted to do was chase after them and pet as many as possible.  She was covered in slobber and hair by the end of our walk.

After we finished our walk we headed back to the hotel and laid Brooklyn down for the night and Craig and I hung out on the floor on the other side of the bed until we were ready to go to bed ourselves. The joys of sharing a hotel room with a baby who is used to sleeping by herself.  The next morning we got up and headed to Ruby Falls.  It is the largest underground waterfall in the U.S.  You ride an elevator down and then walk through some caves for about a 1/2 mile until you get to the waterfall.  It was really quite amazing.  I carried Brooklyn the whole way to the falls, she wouldn't let Craig, but on the way back out she wanted to walk some so we hung at the back of the tour group and she did a pretty good job of keeping up while she walked.  After checking out the waterfall we headed up to a lookout point, which meant carrying Brooklyn up a bunch of stairs (at least I got to count it as my workout for the day).

After our visit to Ruby Falls Thursday morning we were ready to finish our drive to Atlanta.  It's only about a 2 hour drive and we wanted to keep Brooklyn awake so that she would take a late nap and hopefully a good nap to prepare her for the football game that evening.  We stopped for lunch at Chik-fil-A about halfway through the drive and let her play in the play area for a little while.  She also decided that she now all the sudden likes chicken and she ate a ton of my chicken tenders, which is awesome and I hope it isn't just a faze.

We arrived in Atlanta Thursday afternoon and quickly got the pack-n-play set up and laid Brooklyn down.  Luckily we were staying at  Residence Inn so we had separate rooms so we didn't have to hide while she slept.  Luckily our plan worked perfectly, she fell asleep at about 2:30 and slept til 5:00.  While she was sleeping Brian, his fiance Brooke, and Pops and Mouse all arrived.  Once everyone was there we all got into our Boise State gear and were off to the Georgia Dome to watch BSU vs. Ole Miss.  We got to hangout in the Fan Zone for awhile before we headed over to the stadium.  We ate some dinner, met Buster the Bronco, and Craig and Brian did some obstacle course thing, which they dominated. We also made the mistake of giving Brooklyn a whole chocolate chip cookie (yes a very nutritious dinner), which she then got chocolate drool on all 3 of us, and of course we all had white on.

We then headed over to the game which started at 8:00 pm.  We had seats in a Boise State section and had some fun ladies sitting next to us who helped keep Brooklyn entertained.  She loved to clap anytime the crowd clapped, which means she did clap for Ole Miss sometimes too.  Either Craig or I would go walk around with her at least once a quarter and we would also just pass her down the line and she just hung out with everyone.  When we walked around she constantly had people asking for high fives or pounds.  One guy even asked to take a picture with her.  Brooklyn did really well until about half way through the fourth quarter, which is also when BSU started to fall apart too. The 3 of us left the game a little early and luckily beat the traffic and got Brooklyn back to the hotel and she fell right to sleep, thank goodness since it was midnight by that point.

Friday morning we then went to the Georgia Aquarium, which just got ranked the #1 aquarium in America.  We had to wake Brooklyn up at 9:00 so that we could get to the aquarium by 10:00 and spend a few hours their before we had to get back to the hotel for her nap.  The aquarium was packed, but we could definitely see why it got ranked #1.  Brooklyn loved all the "fishies" and she would work her way up in between people so she could get to the glass. She would have loved to run around everywhere, but it was way too busy to let her do that. The whole city of Atlanta was crazy busy. There was the football game Thursday and then another one Saturday.  There was a NASCAR race there on Sunday and Dragon Con (whatever that is, all I know is that there were a bunch of crazies all dressed up all over the city).  Pops and Nana bought Brooklyn a stuffed turtle and she is now totally obsessed.

After the aquarium we headed back to the hotel to lay Brooklyn down for a nap.  We woke her up a few hours later so that we could head back downtown to go to the World of Coca-Cola.  we of course had to hit this up since Pops and Mouse's basement is a Coca-Cola museum in and of its self.  It was pretty cool, it was just a self guided tour and only took about an hour.  There were a lot of memorabilia and history of the company.  There was also a tasting room where they had a ton of different Coke products from all over the world.  Some were delicious and others were awful.  They gave every person a Coke on the way out and of course we spent sometime in the gift shop.  You couldn't expect Pop's to leave without buying a few Coke things to add to his collection.

 After dragging Pop's out of the gift shop : ) we headed off to dinner.  A friend of ours recommended a place called Mary Mack's.  It was so good.  This restaurant was the definition of southern.  After dinner Pop's and Mouse took Brooklyn back to the hotel and Craig, Brian, Brooke, and I headed off to the Braves vs. Marlins game.  We didn't think 2 nights in a row of late games would work for Brooklyn and luckily Stan and Diane volunteered to hang out with her and put her to bed.  They said she did great, which I expected because she warmed up to them so quickly, she was saying "Pops-Pops" by the end of Friday.  Craig and I had a blast at the game.  It was nice to not have to entertain Brooklyn the whole time and I got to go the the restroom all by myself (which if you are a mom you know what that's like).

Saturday we all slept in and then went to brunch to celebrate Brooke's birthday.  Diane found a place online that looked really good called Joy's Cafe, so so so so good.  If you are ever in Atlanta you have to go.  I got the best omelet I have ever had in my life (sun dried tomato, feta, and spinach). Craig's pancakes looked pretty dang good too.  Brooklyn just ate the fruit off of everyone's plates.  We then headed back to the hotel for cake and presents and then nap time.  Brian and Brooke then had to head off to the airport. Later that afternoon we went to go check out Atlanta's underground and we were all a little dissapointed.  We only walked around for about 30 minutes and then decided to try to find a place to eat for dinner.  The restaurant we wanted to try, Gladys Knight's Chicken and Waffles, had over an hour wait so we passed that up and headed to a place called the Juke Joint.  There was live Jazz music which kept Brooklyn entertained and we all got to eat delicious southern food.  We definitely got our fill of good food on this trip.  And back to the hotel to put Brooklyn to sleep.

Sunday morning we woke up and said our good-byes and then hit the road back to Memphis.  We decided to go through Alabama on our way back.  I was really dreading this drive since we weren't able to break it up like we did on the way, but luckily there was no traffic and after our stop for lunch Brooklyn fell asleep for a while. She looked so uncomfortable with her head bobbing around so I tried to put my pillow to help, but she didn't like that so I took it back and she slept really uncomfortably until Craig accidentally hit the noise things just outside the lines on the road, twice, and woke her up.  Luckily we were only about 50 miles outside of Memphis by this point so it didn't matter too much.  Somehow we managed to only stop the once on the way back and made it home in just under 6 hours.

Brooklyn did really well and I only had to resort to giving her my kindle to play with the last 30 minutes of the drive.  we did buy a few new toys for her to help with the drive.  She loved her new princess magna-doodle, animal puzzle, and also her Mickey Mouse Clubhouse camera.  By the end of the trip she was saying cheese anytime a camera was pointed at her, because we were saying cheese whenever she would point her camera at us.  We had such a fantastic time and were so glad that we got to see family as well.  it just made the trip that much better.  Brooklyn did so well, she slept amazing the whole time and was such a trooper being dragged all over the city.  And my anxiety about the drive was totally pointless, because of course we have the best baby ever (I hope I'm not eating those words when we travel out to Brian and Brooke's wedding).