I had a jam-packed schedule of events for our trip to Atlanta.  I’m not saying it was planned to the minute, but I did have an estimate of how long I thought the various activities would take.

Funny thing about plans…

My sister was joining us in Atlanta (also staying at Kris’ house), and I called her after we arrived to see how much longer she would be.  The idea was to go to Stone Mountain that evening where there was a laser show.  Fortunately, she asked so many annoying forward-thinking questions about things like where we would eat dinner, that I went to the website and realized that they did not, in fact, have a laser show on Friday evening, their Labor Day weekend beginning on Saturday, not Friday night.

Change of plans.

I looked at the different places I wanted to go, and saw that nothing was open on Friday night, except for the Aquarium, which, to our great luck, was open until 10 pm on Fridays through the summer, and included a cash bar and live band.  My kind of party.

Barb had eaten at a place called Mary Mac’s Tea Room on a previous trip to Atlanta, and she called a friend of hers who lived not too far outside of town and had him meet us there.  Food was great.  They put us at a huge round table, which is so much better than a long rectangular one. 

After dinner, we headed to the Aquarium.  The place was lively, but not crowded.  No line at the door for tickets, not too crowded getting in to see the exhibits.  I did not appreciate this nearly as much then as I did the next day when I passed the Aquarium several times.  Each time we went by, the courtyard was packed with huge masses of people shuffling forward to get a ticket.  Thank goodness there was no laser show at Stone Mountain the night before.

Walking to the Aquarium.  Everybody way in front; Mary lagging.

I’ve been to plenty of aquariums, and this one was just fine.  It’s the largest aquarium in North America, so it pretty much had everything. 

In with the fish.

Fish-eyed.

We didn’t see the dolphin show, but we did watch them in their tank.  One came up to Jenny and stared at her.  They really are neat.  You wonder what they are thinking.

She kept trying to hide.  Drove me nuts.

Petting the anemones.

I really liked going into the penguin exhibit.  You have to crawl, which is no fun, but in one part there are places you can stand up and be at eye level with the penguins.  The best part of this was being outside the tunnel and watching the penguins watch the humans pop up.  I imagine they thought the humans were pretty neat, maybe even wondered what the humans were thinking…

Fish tunnel.

Pretty big dude.

Uh, Mom, I think I’m a little too close to these guys.

Even though we left the aquarium late, we still had to tell certain children to settle down and go to sleep. 

My favorite part.  SIT and watch.

If you are on a tight budget, but would still like to take a vacation, I strongly recommend finding a friend who has children and who would also like to take a vacation.  Then swap houses.  It does not matter where the friend lives, or where you live.  It doesn’t matter that there is “nothing to do” in that area.  Middle of nowhere, no cultural venues, no recreational opportunities?  No problem.  As long as the friend has toys, your kids will be perfectly happy to stay put.  Pack a good book and a laptop (for yourself) and chill out for a few days.

Friend and blog reader, Kris, was so very kind and offered us her house when she learned we were coming to town.  Kris and her family were heading out of town for an annual family reunion, so we showed up as they were heading out.  Kris has only met me once, and I’m not sure which of us is crazier.

My only moment of panic came when she asked me to take care of the pet geckos.  During the day, the light to the tank needed to be ON, and at night, the light had to be OFF.  That was all we had to do, but it still had me worried I would mess up.  We left yesterday and she wasn’t coming home until today, so I stressed out a lot wondering if I should leave the geckos in the dark or the light.  I finally asked the neighbor to come over in the morning to light them up.

I’m just happy she didn’t have fish.  I have killed every fish I have ever had.

My children would have been happy had we just stayed at the house and allowed them to play with the toys and the Wii, and watched movies.  Unfortunately (or fortunately) for them, they have parents who have little inkling to sit around and do nothing when there is a whole city out there to explore.

And so we dragged them all over, spending very little time at the house.

*******

Last night, as our trip was nearing to an end and Bill was lamenting not having brought appropriate footwear for all the walking we did, I concluded that I really need to spend a full day – 12 to 14 hours – to properly get my family packed up and loaded, and to get my house put in order.

“If I’m only going to spend half that time to prepare for a trip,” I told him, “the job will only be half-@$$ed {ahem}.  And if I’m only going to spend 3 or 4 hours to pack up, then the job won’t even be half-*****.  Basically, I did a quarter-***** job preparing us.”  Now, the footwear issue is not my fault.  A grown man wants to pack boat shoes for a sightseeing weekend, that’s his problem.  The kids all had shoes appropriate for walking.  But there were other items forgotten, that I would have remembered had I used my checklists (pre-made, stored on the computer) and/or had 15 minutes of peace and quiet in which to just think about what I was doing.

We had lots of police-people telling us to STOP.  Good advice.

More on things left behind later.

Poor kid, dragged hither and yon.

Finally, a good place to stretch out and relax.

Being unprepared also had the detrimental effect on the general mood of the trip.  The kids would have been grumpy no matter what (is it just my kids?  Tell me it’s not just my kids who aren’t very good at doing new and different things, breaking with the routine or walking 5 miles over the course of a day, for 2 or 3 days in a row).  But normally, I am not a grumpy person and my joy and enthusiasm is, if not contagious, plenty enough for all of us.  But if I’m stressed and aggravated, then that mood certainly is contagious.  Poor Jenny, who really has a very hard time rushing and being spontaneous, was so upset when packing that she said she just wanted to go the next day.  She knows, if I don’t, that it’s much better to take the time to do it right.

My normal, happy self.

Sometimes it’s contagious.

He has his own brand of happiness.

Storming Atlanta

We’re just back from a weekend in Atlanta, Georgia.  It’s been about a year since Bill and I did this kind of trip: wake up early, stay up late, walk walk walk, and walk some more, see this, do that, mandatory fun sort of vacation.  I brought back 682 photos, of which I will only post a tiny fraction.  The great thing about digital cameras is that you can take 682 pictures and be happy with a few dozen good shots.  The kids moaned and whined the entire trip…well, everybody whined a few times, some whined more often than others, and when you have 6 children (and 2 occasionally grumpy adults), there’s always somebody whining.  All that walking, much of it with an extra 30 lbs on my back or shoulders, means I had Advil for breakfast.  More posting to follow after I take a shower and start the laundry.

Better than Crossfit