Stone Mountain Quackers

Saturday we enjoyed the theme-park side of Stone Mountain. There's a little Dollywood-esque village at the foot of the mountain where a $25 arm band grants you access to various types of family fun for the entire day.




We started the morning with a train ride that took us around the base of the mountain. The weather was perfect and the kids felt like big stuff sitting by themselves! It happened to be St. Patrick's Day but since I have no sense of time or date while on vacation, I had no idea... it was pure luck that I dressed the girls in green. I left poor Wesley vulnerable to pinching. :o) After the train ride we watched the park's 4-D Yogi Bear movie - I'm glad I had a sweater to cover my face during all of the splashing!

It cost a little extra, but Wesley was very adamant that we "ride the ducks." He had seen clips advertising it on the hotel TV and it was all he could talk about. The fact that they hand out very LOUD quackers as you board the bus was all the info that Mimi & Grandpa needed to decide to sit it out. :o) But it ended up being lots of fun, definitely worth the extra money, and probably the highlight of the trip for the kids. (Well, that and staying in a hotel with a swimming pool, of course...)

The ride starts out as a bus tour and then drives straight into the water and becomes a boat tour. Michael took this picture of another Ride the Ducks tour hitting the water from our vehicle as we were already on the lake. The Duck vehicles are 1940's era Army DUKWs (you can Google that yourself... I'll resist the nerd in me for a moment and not attempt to insert the entire history here). We had a great driver that got everyone pumped up playing music from his own personal mix CD. He played the theme from Jaws right before we hit the water, but then changed it into something like the theme from Rocky as we made a splash!





We were sitting up front (Wesley of course insisted that we arrive early to ensure that we would get to sit in the very front row) and the driver tapped Wes to drive the boat for a bit.  Carigan got a little scared and buried her head in my shoulder as we were going in the water... she picked up on the fact that the driver intended on driving us into the water and did NOT know what she thought of that! She recovered pretty quickly because it was nice and tranquil floating on the lake.  It was funny to see Wes have no fear at all, whereas not that long ago he flat-out refused to take the wheel on the Jungle Cruise at Disney World ~ he definitely wasn't shy about this!





View of the carillon in front of Stone Mountain from our boat. We could hear the bells and our driver/captain said an elderly lady named Miss Mabel was playing them. There are only a few carillons actually in use in the country, and a famous one is just down the road from us in Lake Wales - Bok Tower. Stone Mountain's carillon was donated to the park by Coca-Cola after it was exhibited in the 1964 World's Fair in New York City.





After our Duck tour we met back up with Mimi and Grandpa for some miniature golf. Wesley had very "creative" ways of counting his strokes. Let's just say honesty is not his best virtue while on the green.  Anna Kate hopped up on this tree stump while waiting for her turn to putt. Always ready to imitate anything her sister does, Carigan immediately had to do the same. She gingerly climbed up there and found her balance. I got my camera ready and said, "Now put your arms out!" To which she lifted her shirt. Hmmmmmmm... okay so we gotta work a little on our communication!





After finishing our game of miniature golf we spent some time getting our wiggles out in a sunny area right below the carving. Apparently they have an amazing laser show there during high season... it doesn't start until March 31, so we didn't get to see it. At least we have a big incentive to return to Stone Mountain!  All the activities in the park closed at 5:30 and we found ourselves short on time. Wesley really wanted to try the Sky Hike (kind of like a ropes course high in the trees), but we looked at the clock and realized we only had 15 minutes to spare so we rushed to The Barn, a huge 4-story indoor play facility where we rocked it out until they kicked us out promptly at 5:30.  The kids could have spent a couple of hours in there ~ at least they had a really really fun 15 minutes!  -BELOW- Wesley getting Anna Kate pumped up as we prepared to leave the park.





Carigan is giving us fits with her firm no hand-holding/no high-chair-sitting/no assistance-required stance. Like usual, I told Carigan I was going to pick her up if she didn't let me hold her hand as we headed toward the parking lot. Like usual, she was resisting me. I was feeling generous so I said, "You want Mommy to hold you or Daddy to hold you?" She didn't budge. Kind of being funny I said, "You want Wesley to hold you?" Carigan grinned and said, "Sure!" Then she ran for her big brother.

She ended up letting both Wesley and Mommy hold her hand on the way back to the car. Then we drove back to Columbus amidst a sporadic outbreak of quacking from Ride the Duck quackers. So much for that nap I thought Carigan would take in the car! Thank you for a super-fun spring break, Mimi & Grandpa!!

A HOTEL... with a POOL!!!

Oh, and Stone Mountain too. :o) Mimi and Grandpa took us on a mini-vacation near the end of our spring break... all Wesley and Anna Kate wanted was to stay in a hotel with a pool! We made the short drive from Columbus (where Michael's parents live) to Stone Mountain Thursday afternoon and checked into the resort inside the park. The kids were beside themselves with excitement. They were ready to go straight to the pool but we convinced them to simmer down and eat some dinner first! The hotel had a fancy-shmancy restaurant where we at breakfast and dinner every day that we were there. The kids drank their cherry sprites out of wine glasses - we were high society, lemme tell ya!




Before & after pics of Carigan at dinner Thursday night... so maybe all our high societyness hasn't rubbed off on her yet!





We chose Stone Mountain because the resort has an indoor pool, but the outdoor pool was heated and we were able to swim out under the stars! It would have been quite relaxing if Carigan wasn't so bent on drowning herself... I had hoped she had grown out of that phase we so enjoyed in Sanibel last summer where she didn't want anyone to touch her while in the pool. But alas, Little Miss Independence still did not seem to grasp that not letting anyone hold her meant going underwater, even after we demonstrated for her several times. She fought against us holding her the whole time!  So we ended up spending a lot of time in the large hot tub adjoining the outdoor pool because it had an interior ledge where Carigan could walk circles mostly unassisted. I made her get out every few minutes since I wasn't thrilled with the idea of her being in the hot tub, and she was fine with that until she realized I was going to prevent her from running and jumping into the big pool and drowning herself. I finally let Daddy have all the fun with #1 and #2 and took Carigan to the giant outdoor chess set where she entertained herself dragging pieces around until bedtime.





And bedtime was so quiet and peaceful in our hotel room! Yes, my Floridian 4 & 6-year-olds like to sleep in footed pajamas... it started when a friend handed down a bunch of big fluffy footed pajamas for Carigan before Christmas. Then I found a single plain pair of size 4 footed pajamas in a bin of consignment sale clothes from Mimi and Anna Kate wanted to sleep in them every night. Then Wes felt left out so I bought him some Star Wars footed pajamas at Target (who even knew they made them that big??). We hit a big Carter's sale in Columbus and Mimi bought new footed pajamas for all. I guess the fact that none of my kids keep covers on them at night makes up for the fact they want to wear winter pajamas when it's 85 degrees outside!  -BELOW- Full of yummy hotel breakfast Friday morning.





I really just stumbled upon Stone Mountain when researching fun things to do with kids in the Atlanta area. I had never even heard of it before. It's supposedly the world's largest exposed hunk 'o granite, and the world's largest relief sculpture is chiseled into the side of it... although the mountain is so massive that despite being larger than the one on Mt. Rushmore, the carving does not look that big against such a massive backdrop. The only time we could get close to appreciating its scale was when we were whizzing past it on the Skyride.

Since I'd never heard of Stone Mountain before and had 8 hours in the car on the way to Georgia from Florida with nothing but an iPad to keep me entertained in the fleeting gaps of time between the kids asking for stuff, I did a lot of Googling on Stone Mountain. I read a lot about the KKK's tie to Stone Mountain. Apparently the KKK was re-established on the top of Stone Mountain in 1915. The man that owned the mountain was a member of the KKK and he gave the Klan access to Stone Mountain for rituals and ceremonies, which continued on the mountain for about 50 years until ownership was transferred to the government. Stone Mountain is considered to be sacred by the Klan and was mentioned in Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. The carving is a Confederate Memorial depicting Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, & Stonewall Jackson. The majority of the funding for the carving was raised by members of the KKK and the man initially commissioned to do the work was a member of the Klan - Gutzon Borglum, who went on to do Mt. Rushmore. Did YOU know the man that carved Mt. Rushmore was a member of the KKK??? Me Neither!! Sheeeesh. Anywho, Stone Mountain is now a very nice family park and the only mention of its shameful history is contained in a tiny corner of one display in the museum. Knowing what I did, I definitely wished that they would have done more to acknowledge the dark origination of the carving instead of trying to pass it off as this great thing. So really, I didn't care for the carving at all (and it truly is quite unimpressive b/c its massive scale is just completely lost on that mountain... those Klansmen were not so bright!) but I did love all the natural beauty in the park.

Peering out the window of the Skyride on our way up... apparently Robert E. Lee's thumb is the size of a couch and a full-grown man could take shelter inside a horse's mouth when it rained during construction. Yet ultimately the dwarfed carving remains kinda piddly lookin'.





It was super-duper bright on the top of the mountain! The sun glistened off the white granite and the kids all immediately started whining. I gave Anna Kate my sunglasses and Michael soon relinquished his to Wesley. We could see the Atlanta skyline from up there.  It really felt like walking on the surface of the moon with all the craters. The occasional low-lying tree sprouting out from the rock reminded me of Mars Hill in Athens. Wes & AK liked climbing in the craters and pretending they were in a bathtub.  March 16, 2012





Riding back to the bottom of the mountain. -BELOW- Enjoying the view of the lake from our balcony later that afternoon. Michael took the big kids back to the swimming pool while Carigan and I took a nap!





Going swimming for the third and final time after dinner. Wes asked me to take him back to the hotel room early so he could watch LEGO Ninjago Spinjitzu... he had seen a commercial for it when I had HGTV on the night before. I watched it with him to make sure it was okay - it ended up being good snuggling/bonding time. He was one happy boy! Next we watched House Hunters and Wes got really into it saying, "I think they're gonna pick house #2... NO! House #1... no, #2..." And when they picked he jumped up and down and said, "I KNEW it!" I think he was trying to get into it for my benefit. So sweet. :o)

Alabama Friends

For some inexplicable reason most all of my best friends have an Alabama connection... I married an Auburn grad, my college roommate and best friend is from Birmingham, and some of my closest friends in Florida are all from Alabama. Susan and I used to talk about going "home" with each other before we had kids... I really wanted to take her to Lexington and show her the horse farms and spend a day at Keeneland or Shakertown, and she was going to show me Montgomery. I made my first trip to Montgomery last week during spring break, and while it was very difficult to be there without Susan, it was wonderful to finally see her home. And of course it was WONDERFUL to see her kids! We have missed Jonah and Claire SO much since Tony and Erin moved to Alabama last June. These kiddos have really missed each other!!



Tony and Erin actually live in Prattville, which is a little further up the road from where we were staying in Columbus, so we invited ourselves to Susan's parents' house in Montgomery. Tony wasn't able to meet us, but he let George and Beverly get the kids the night before so we could spend time with them. Anna Kate giggled in anticipation the entire drive up to Montgomery, excited to see Claire. It's still difficult for me to let go of that vision Susan and I had of our kids growing up together from birth... we used to talk about it all the time while walking the lake. I moved around and never got to grow up with the same kids, and Susan and I talked about how excited we were that our kids would get to do that. But I'm grateful that we have opportunities to visit, and I know this will be the first of many.  George and Beverly treated us to Chick-fil-A and homemade pound cake with strawberries. I think it's the most peaceful meal I've had in weeks with the kids so happily occupied at their own table!





George & Beverly also let us make a royal mess... true grandparents. :o) Jonah is one funny guy. Michael and I were sitting at "the grown-up table" enjoying our dessert when Jonah came up with a York in his hand and said, "Would you wike a peppehmint? - it will make your bweath minty fwesh." Ohhh, J-Man, how I love you!





Sweet Friends. Claire loves flowers. She talked about flowers all day and was always finding them, drawing them, or asking me about them.  My college roommate and best friend Whitney lives in Birmingham and she drove down with her family to visit with us briefly. I have always been proud of my friends and I talk about them a lot, so prior to meeting, Susan had heard a lot about Whitney & Whitney had heard a lot about Susan. They finally got to meet when Whitney flew down to Florida for a visit when Wesley was a baby. We all went to the beach together. Whit has been a great support for me in the midst of Susan's loss and the grief that followed. She drove me to Susan's funeral in Prattville and she kept Carigan for me in the church nursery during the service. She was pregnant with Collins at the time. I had not seen Collins since I flew to Birmingham to meet her last spring when she was only a couple of months old! She's so sweet and beautiful and she looks just like Whit's baby pictures.





J-Man and Michael playing ball in the backyard. First Michael pitched to Jonah and then J-Man wanted to pitch to Michael. I'm telling ya, Susan's kids are athletic! My poor kids got stuck with my genes. Her kids blow me away!  -BELOW- Claire Bear giving little flowers to Collins.





All the kiddos! Whit with Collins and Hayes, and me with the Rogers/Griffies kids. Wednesday, March 14, 2012

After Whit left, George & Beverly let us follow them out to the cemetery where Susan in buried. I had brought some flowers to put on her grave. Claire was -of course- very taken by the flowers. Wesley rode with Jonah in George & Beverly's car and Claire rode with us on the way to the cemetery. Claire was asking questions about what the cemetery was and on the drive we talked about how it was just a special place where we could go and remember Mommy, and tell her how much we miss her. I told her she could give the flowers to Mommy there. Claire said, "And Mommy will know that we gave her flowers?" I told her that yes, I believe she would. Claire was saying, "Hi Mommy!" as I took the picture below. I think having the twins with us was the only thing that kept me from completely breaking down at the grave site. They are so full of joy all the time - they continue to be such a tremendous blessing to everyone that has had to navigate the waters of grief and sorrow. They are truly Susan's living legacy.

Getting ready to say goodbye, with George and Beverly. I wouldn't be a parent if I didn't occasionally pose the kids staring directly into the sun ~ I think half of the pictures of my as a kid I'm squinting into the sun because Dad never wanted the sun behind us when taking pictures!

We stopped in Auburn on the way back to Columbus to meet up with Michael's best friend from UK. He and Dave worked in the same lab under the same professor as they were working towards their PhDs. Dave & Michelle "adopted" Michael during the long period that we had broken up due to the difficulty of the long distance relationship when I was at Harding. They often had him in their home, playing with their (at the time) very young kids during a lonely time in his life and I'm so grateful he had their friendship. Dave was a groomsmen in our wedding and Michelle did our flowers (they were beautiful!). We last met up with Dave & Michelle and their kids Mary & Michael last year when they were vacationing in Florida. Both Wesley & AK remembered the Held kids well and were excited to see them. Wesley and Michael immediately re-connected over Star Wars and Nintendo DS games. Two peas in a pod.

Mary is so sweet & funny & talkative and she was great with the girls. Michael really wanted to meet at a place called Niffer's where he used to eat frequently as a student at Auburn. It was kids eat free night and they had a lot of fun things for kids. Michael knew the balloon guy - said he used to be in the campus ministry with him. Anna Kate got a princess balloon and Mary wanted a girl in a poodle skirt. Michael got a light saber and Wesley asked for an AT-AT Walker... the guy did his best. :o)

Apparently they do a pinata every Wednesday night at Niffer's. They got to whack at it in order of height, so Anna Kate went before Wesley. Wes was the first to knock a hole in it.





Apparently while we were eating dinner Mary was conspiring with Anna Kate to go out for ice-cream afterward. We got ready to load up and head home and Michelle said, "Well it seems the girls have made plans to go to Brusters." I was worried about Carigan holding up, but luckily she went the slap-happy route instead of the little terror route. After we got our ice-cream Mary said, "You wanna see the Casino?" I said, "There's a casino??" She replied enthusiastically that there was... I figured it must be a pinball game or something. Mary led us around the corner to the gazebo and said, "See?!" Too funny. She cracks me up.

Carigan decided Michelle was her favorite person and she kept walking along the bench inside the gazebo until she got near Michelle and then she'd take a flying leap into her arms. She started to leap from further and further back... she had total faith that Michelle was going to catch her! She would get upset if any of the other kids sat on the bench, blocking her route to Michelle.





And what's a visit to Alabama without a little drive-through watchin'?! Apparently a huge source of entertainment in these parts! It was late and all three kids were crashed by the time we got back to Columbus, but we had a wonderful day full of Alabama friends!

BIG FAT HAIRY DEAL!

Wesley lost his first tooth last night!! This is a momentous occasion that Wesley has been eagerly anticipating for more than a year. He was absolutely beside himself with excitement. It's been super wiggly for a couple of weeks now and could have come out sooner, but Wesley didn't want anyone to mess with it. I was seriously afraid it would come out in his sleep and he'd swallow it! We got home from church last night and Michael popped it off the root while brushing Wesley's teeth. I think the blood startled Wes a little and he went running into the kitchen, half excited, half running away from Michael. He was actually giggling though, realizing the big moment had arrived. I asked him to show me and I reached in and grabbed the tooth and pulled it straight out. Wes was ecstatic. He started jumping up and down and giggling and he could not WAIT to go to bed!

Anna Kate saw some cartoon or show awhile ago where a child left a letter for the Tooth Fairy asking her to let her keep her tooth (I used to pull that one myself when I little... somewhere in my parents' house I'm sure there's a little box of teeth. Gross, huh?). Anna Kate has frequently informed me that she intends on asking the Tooth Fairy if she can keep her tooth when she loses one. So I asked Wes if he wanted to write a letter to the Tooth Fairy asking to keep his tooth, and he said, "No, I want her to take it." Clearly he was spared the Rhodes hoarding gene!




He ran into his bedroom and tried to stick the itty-bitty-teeny-tiny tooth directly under his pillow but I told him it would get lost and he needed to put it in something. I gave him a ziploc baggie but he clearly had concerns about whether or not the Tooth Fairy would retrieve a tooth from a ziploc baggie. I had a vague memory of being given some sort of tooth fairy pouch or pillow at one of Wesley's baby showers nearly 7 years ago. I went digging through the closet and initially told Wes I couldn't find it and then - Tah-dah! Only had to store it for 6 1/2+ years but we finally got to break out the tooth fairy pillow. Wes was thrilled... have I mentioned he was excited??

I thought the Tooth Fairy would have a pretty easy job because I check on Wes every night before I go to bed and he is never EVER asleep on his pillow. He's usually hanging off the side of the bed or sideways or asleep with his head at the end of the bed. But he was SO excited about the tooth under his pillow that he slept directly over it all night long. Lucky for the Tooth Fairy, Wesley is a pretty heavy sleeper.





Michael had to be in Gainesville by 10:00 this morning, so he had to take Wesley to school early. So he actually had to wake him up. Michael turned off the noise-maker and rubbed Wesley's back and said, "Hey Toothless..." A huge grin spread across Wesley's face before he even opened his eyes. He lifted his pillow and found six quarters folded inside a dollar bill in the tooth pocket of his tooth fairy pillow. It was a happy morning. :o)