A Zoo Day and New Friends

Last Friday, Mandy and I made good on our long-standing intentions to meet in person.  Nashville is fairly close to halfway between us, so we decided to meet up there for a fun day out with our kiddos.  Jeremy was able to come with me, but unfortunately it was him and all the ladies, since Mandy's husband had to work.  (I don't think Jeremy minded at all!)

Mandy already recapped the day, so I'll just share a few of my favorite pictures from our adventures.

Four little monkeys all in a row...

 

Love, love this picture of B!

Addison practiced silly faces for me while we waited outside the reptile house

I love that all the kids are looking back in this picture.  Mandy looks a bit like the Pied Piper, don't you think?

Our one quick attempt at a group shot...thanks, Jeremy!

It really was a fun day.  Mandy and her girls are every bit as sweet as they seem.  Addison & Mackenzie have talked about A & B all week, and I loved Mandy's report that her girls are repeating the "Bye, y'all!" that I taught them at lunch.  : )

It's such a surreal feeling, meeting a blog friend for the first time.  Their faces are so familiar (as were ours, I'm sure) and we know so many of one another's stories already.  All that makes it easy to skip over the initial getting-to-know-yous and just dive right in.  I can't wait to do it again!

Gratuitous Kid Pictures {Fancy Dress Style!}

Last weekend, Addison & Mackenzie attended their first wedding AND got to be flower girls!  I was a little nervous, mainly because the wedding was in South Alabama, which meant a weekend of pretty substantial travel for us.  I was afraid the girls might be so tired from the long trip that they might not be on their best behavior.  Plus, this would be only their second time to stay in  hotel, which could mean less sleep than usual.

Love, love, LOVED our historic hotel!

To my surprise, the entire weekend was better than I dared to imagine.  We packed in the car early Friday morning and had a very uneventful trip down to Mobile.  It was about six hours and we only stopped for breakfast and gas, and Addison & Mackenzie even took a pretty good nap.  A success!

After a quick rest, sandwich, and change of clothes, we turned around and headed thirty minutes north to the rehearsal.  A & M complied well, but quickly grew tired of all the standing around and waiting the rehearsal itself involved.  I assured them that the next day would be better--they would only have to run through the process once and it would be finished!  At some point, the girls started holding hands as they walked down the aisle, which of course, was completely adorable.  I asked if someone told them to do that or they did it on their own and they told me they just wanted to hold hands.  Melt my heart!

With the groom on the morning of his wedding

We were able to spend some time exploring downtown Mobile on Saturday morning, along with Auntie LJ, who came over from Baton Rouge for the wedding.  (We crammed six of us in one hotel room--me, Jeremy, Addison, Mackenzie, Laura Jo, and my mom--and it worked beautifully.  It was actually pretty fun!)

Addison was terrified to stand on the wall

They seriously spent nearly an hour in the hotel lobby, watching Mickey Mouse on an iPhone.  Ha!

I'll just let the pictures speak for the rest of the day.  I pretty much put my camera up once the wedding started and didn't even take a single picture at the reception, but everything was absolutely beautiful and we all had a blast.

Hands on the hips!

 

A little blurry, but I still love it.

After a delicious brunch with the bride, groom, and some other North AL friends on Sunday morning, we took a few last pictures with Auntie LJ and started the trip home.

I love this moment!

Again, the trip was fantastic, with only one stop this time and some pretty great naps for the girls.  Jeremy drove the entire way (thanks again, honey!!) and I was able to get cozy in the small third row and read most of Looking for Alaska. It was probably our smoothest car trip yet.  Wedding weekend success!

The Busy Season

It's back to business as usual for us this week, after a fabulous vacation last week.  We had a great trip this year, definitely our best yet!  Of course, that just makes it even harder to return to the daily grind, but I'm thankful to have this quiet little life to return to...even if the view isn't quite as nice as last week's was:

Our big vacation may be over for the year, but we have plenty going on in the next month to keep us busy.  Fall is shaping up to be quite the action-packed season around here.  Just today I realized that I will have to take an afternoon off to visit the pumpkin patch before Halloween, unless we can go on a Sunday afternoon!

Here is a look at what's on our calendar for the next month:

--An Atlanta Braves game this weekend, with one last chance to see our beloved Chipper Jones 
--A trip with Addison & Mackenzie to see the Fresh Beat Band Live tour...their first "concert" experience!
--A quick pediatrician visit for this year's flu vaccine
--Two birthday parties
--A family picture session, during which we will hopefully get this year's perfect Christmas card photo
--A wedding weekend in Mobile, AL...six hours from here, practically back down at the beach again
--The Mobile weekend will not only be A & M's first wedding experience, but they will also be the flower girls!  That should be...interesting.
--One more wedding the next weekend, a little closer to home.  Thankfully, we will just be attending that one.
--And finally, we will round out the month with a little Trick-or-Treating.  The girls already have their butterfly costumes ready and waiting!

What's on your agenda for these first few weeks of fall?  Are you as excited as I am about this glorious season?

Travels with Twins, Take Four

As we prepare to take our fourth major vacation as a family of four, I can't help but think about the previous beach trips we've had over the past three years.   Thank goodness I have a blog to help me relive all those memories...

First Beach Trip, October 2009

Addison & Mackenzie were six months old when we they visited the beach for the first time.  This was before the state of Alabama was completely broke and everyone in our office still got to attend a conference each year.  (I'm just a little bitter about the loss of that perk, can you tell?)  Perhaps the phrase "visited the beach" is a little misleading.  Although there was gorgeous fall weather, I think we walked down to the beach twice and stuck the girls' toes in the sand. 

I know my family thought we were crazy to be taking the trip that year.  Looking back, I think Jeremy and I were so overwhelmed with the difficulties of adjusting to the first year of life with twins that we were desperate to do something "normal" again.  We thought a nice fall getaway might give us some time to relax and enjoy spending lots of time together.

HAAAAAAAA.

Looking back at my posts from that first trip, I see that I had an overall pretty good attitude about the trip.  But I remember that it was hard.  I remember Mackenzie having her first-ever public meltdown in a restaurant, and I remember sitting in the backseat, between the carseats, singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" over and over to keep the girls calm.  I do remember that we were glad to spend several uninterrupted days together as a family, but I also know that we weren't at all sad to pack up and head home.

Second Beach Trip, May 2010

Once again, when the opportunity for a work conference/vacation presented itself, we weren't about to pass it up.  Although we said after the first trip that we would NOT be doing it again anytime soon, we were positive the second trip would go more smoothly than the first.  After all, we had one-year-olds instead of six-month-olds, which sounds so much better, right?  (Right???)

In some ways it was a much more fun trip; at other times, not so much.  We drove at night again, and I remember the trip down being fairly smooth, except for an exhausted mama and daddy.  Since it was May, the weather was much more beach/pool friendly.  We schlepped over to the beach once (we were across the road at an amazing resort), where Addison slept the entire time and Mackenzie cried when she touched the sand.  After that, we spent a lot of time at the pool.  (Not in the super-awesome lazy river, which I didn't get to enjoy even once...not that I'm bitter!)

The upside to this trip was my sister and her friends staying with us for most of the week.  Having a few extra hands around to baby-wrangle was nice, and Jeremy and I were able to go out to dinner alone several nights after A & M were in bed.  That was definitely a high point for us. 

A few days into the trip, the girls seemed to grow tired of being in an unfamiliar place and started to get cranky and have trouble going to sleep.  Rather than fight it too much, we gave in and headed home an entire day early.  We left at bedtime on Thursday night, leaving the condo to my sister for the last two nights.  I know I was very, very glad to see my bed around 2 a.m. that night!

Third Beach Trip, September 2011

Because Jeremy and I went on a cruise in May of last year, we didn't really plan to take another vacation.  But come late summer, we were itching for another getaway.  Luckily, his parents were up for a short trip as well, and we made it happen in late September. 

Finally, we had the laidback, fun, relaxing family vacation we'd been dreaming of since our first attempt in 2009.  Addison & Mackenzie were not just well-behaved...they were sweet and happy and just pure awesome.  We didn't have to pack up half the house with us for this trip.  We didn't even have to take those dreaded pack n' plays...the girls shared the bottom bunk in their own room and they have seriously talked about it ever since.  It was the highlight of their year, I believe.

We had such a good time last year that we wished we could stay a couple more days.  This time, we have almost an entire week to enjoy together, and I am ever so hopeful that it will be our best vacation yet!

End of Summer Fun

Earlier in the summer, my aunt and I purchased a Groupon deal for the Chattanooga Ducks.  (Basically, it's a tour of the downtown area in a WWII amphibious landing vehicle--a truck that also functions as a boat.)  We decided to hold the tickets until closer to fall and make a day of it in Chattanooga.

Last weekend, the highs were only in the upper 80s, so we decided to head up on Saturday.  It was a fun day in downtown Chattanooga, and I pulled out my camera for the first time in what feels like months and got some fun late-summer pictures of my favorite girls.

All the kids got to take a turn driving the boat...they loved it!

Silly.

Sweet.

After the Duck tour and a delicious lunch downtown, we rode the free shuttle to a different part of downtown--marking Addison & Mackenzie's first public transportation ride, I believe.  (They were thrilled to be riding on a "bus".)  We intended to visit the antique carousel at Coolidge Park, but it was closed for repairs.  The girls happily settled for splashing in the fountains at the park.

When A & M got their fill of splashing, we performed a quick change into some dry clothes and headed back toward our car.  There were a couple of other places I would have liked to visit, but the youngest members of our crew were fading quickly.

Sure enough, almost before we even made it out of the parking garage, this was the scene in the backseat:

I declare it a successful adventure.

Summer is Here

Despite the already crazy-hot temperatures, our summer is off to a great start.

Although the girls have inherited my tendency to "hide out" during the heat, we have been out and about quite a bit lately.

• We have been to our town's public pool a couple of times now, and the girls seem to really enjoy it.  They are still pretty timid in the water, but I think we just need to keep going to get them a little more comfortable.  I mentioned a little bit about how nostalgic that pool makes me feel in this post, and it's fun to note the things that have changed and the things that haven't in the (many) years since I last spent time there.  (Still damp, dark bathrooms!)  The cost has definitely risen since I was a kid, and we are actually considering buying a pass for the rest of the summer.

• After an afternoon at the pool, we are all usually worn out.  This week, it was a little late for nap when we got home, so I thought the girls would skip it and go to bed early.  Instead, I came in from the grocery store at 5:30 to find this scene (and J asleep on the other couch):

• Last Thursday, my mom, my aunt, and I loaded up the girls and ventured over to a weekly farmer's market-type setup.   Although I only bought a (delicious) strawberry lemonade and a half-loaf of bread, it was fun to wander around and look at all the goods and produce.  A & M had a great time in the free children's area and enjoyed about 1/4 of their organic, all-natural fruit popsicles (that were $3 each, of course).  Kids!  : )  There was also a monthly art festival going on in the downtown square, with a variety of local artists and vendors.  Bands and musical instruments are pretty much the girls' favorite things right now, so they loved seeing a few different groups playing music.  There was even a full band set up on the courthouse steps.  Addison & Mackenzie would have gladly stayed until bedtime, if not for the band taking a break.  We will definitely be making a return trip soon!

• A couple of weeks ago, we took the girls to their first baseball game.  They were much more interested in the food and the surroundings than the game, of course, but it was a pretty successful evening.  We now know not to waste the money taking them to a Braves game for a couple more years...the local ballpark will do just fine!  A & M entertained the (mostly older) people sitting around us.  They scammed a few peanuts off a nice man behind us, and the lady sitting in front of us bought them a bag of cotton candy.  Strangely, they don't really care for cotton candy much (what kind of kids don't like pure spun sugar?!), but it was awfully sweet of her. 

• Finally, a question for you... With all the swimming and water activities we've had going on so far, I am thinking I need at least one more decent swimsuit. Anyone have recommendations for well-made, figure-flattering suits?  The one I have is Speedo, and it fits pretty well, but I'm willing to branch out and try something new.

(I'm playing with a new collage app, and apparently this will be the summer of the blurry phone picture!)