Lifelines

When I come across a particularly great shot of the kids or a photo that means a lot to me, I like to set it apart from the others.
I just think some photos deserve a moment of their own.
And that’s what I thought the very second this popped up on the display screen of my camera at the aquarium.

Greer is very much her mother’s daughter but at heart, she’s her daddy’s girl.
And BOY does he love her…

Oh me, oh my.
Once upon a Kings Island, my mother took my daughter for a few minutes while we rode some rides with the big boys and when she was returned to us, she looked like this:

(That was taken August of 2007–she’d just turned 2! And she REMEMBERS!)

From that moment on, we had us a face painting junkie on our hands.
She’s been dying, positively dying to have another go at it, and I just couldn’t say no.

It took her A-G-E-S to pick out her design, so long in fact that we left the first time around because we’d been standing there for 15 minutes while she browsed. And while I was happy to indulge, this Mama does carry a heavy dose of veto power because she tends to like the designs that leave about a speck of regular skin color behind. Me, I prefer a doodle.

Eventually, we agreed on the most perfect of selections and requested that the colors be tailored to her outfit.
(That was HER, by the way, not me!)

She felt smashingly gorgeous and I totally enjoyed her reveling in her moment of face painting glory.
Though sad to watch it wash away later that night, she’s already dragged from me a vow to do it again just as soon as we find our crafter.

And neither of us can wait :)

Creux, he was not so impressed.
He was busy indulging his inner jerk :)

(I say that with love but the truth hurts sometimes.)

After Hurricane Martin left the gift shop, we found the sting ray touch tank. I had barely hoisted him up before he was lunging for the water and I had to make a tough decision: baby or camera. One of them needed to go because one of them had definitely been water-bound had I pushed that any further.
This worked out fine because my camera battery died at this point anyway and I’d already scoped a prime outlet from which to snag a charge.
What I DON’T have a photo of is me sitting guard over my battery and that outlet but I sort of wish I did.
It was actually a pivital point in the day because if we hadn’t charged it, we wouldn’t have been able to show off Centennial Olympic Park OR our first home.
But now I have photos of all of that!

Anyway, here’s Creux meeting the sting rays.
He dug ‘em.
Enough said.

WOW, today did not go as planned.
It was supposed to take us about 3-3.5 hours to get to this cabin and it ended up taking about SEVEN.
We had major issues leaving Atlanta, losing well over an hour (and precious sleeptime–by the time the Littles fell asleep and woke up, we were STILL in the outskirts of the city).
And then what?
I can’t really say.
We didn’t make all the right turns, we stopped for potties, we stopped for lunch, we stopped for groceries which takes eons in the best of times.

But it seems to be worth the trouble so far!
We had a bit of an issue finding the place (in the boonies with lots of dark, twisty, clinging-to-the-cliff type roads–I was sick with stress by the time we parked the car in the driveway) and then it took almost as long to unpack as it did to get here.

It’s 9:20 and my children haven’t eaten dinner yet (schedules have left the building), Creux is BEYOND coping but is currently pacified with the pool, and the rest of them are as happy as little larks. (Or guppies?) I tried to use my phone shortly after we arrived and discovered that we had no reception but after a few phone calls and…whatever Charlie did, we’re up and running!

Charlie’s making dinner while I’m manning the swimmers but he was kind enough to bring my laptop down so I could communicate with the outer world while I sit here.

The cabin is beautiful, the pool water is a balmy 80 degrees, and I think we’ve found our winter vacation activity of choice! We really have no firm plans while here except…swimming.
Playing.
Relaxing.
Having all kinds of terrific fun.
I’d like to scoot out at some point and re-discover the area–it’s been years since we’ve been here and I know there’s tons to see and do.

I’ll see if I can get some photos up here soon but the new ones will wait until I can get my mouse attached. It’s too hard to do all the photo stuff without it unless they’re already loaded on the computer and fussed with on Picasa. That’s ok though, I still have tons from Atlanta to share so..I’ll try and get busy!

Sending vacation cheer from “somewhere” in the Smokies…

We’ve been trapped in Atlanta’s unbelievably crappy traffic for an hour and fifteen minutes.
I now remember why we left.

Home is better, despite the sunshine and 50 degree February temp.
Get me out of here!!!

After a whirlwind day spent in downtown yesterday, we’re loading up the car and heading for the Smokies.
But before I shut this down, I thought I’d post a sweet pic of Creux because he wasn’t really in a whole bunch from yesterday.

The reason for that is because he was in a monsterous mood.
He took his mohawk down, whined and cried and dragged himself through the aquarium (when he wasn’t dashing off), gave new meaning to the word “meltdown” and just generally made the entire family, and the entire Georgia Aquarium, pretty miserable.

When I took this picture, I’d just skipped out on the 4D movie because he couldn’t even stand with us in the line. Charlie seemed to be hitting his “done” point and in order to prevent a tandem father/son tantrum, I thought I’d just make Creux scarce for awhile and to let the others enjoy the movie in peace.

I was a little worried about entertaining him by myself because, due to my somewhat cumbersome physical condition, I have a hard time yanking him up off the ground when he’s lying prone beating on it.
But.
BUT!
I found the gift shop :)
And we played in there for probably half an hour, loving all manner of stuffed things with fins, buying nothing but leaving a trail of disaster in our wake.
He was happy though.

And by the time he’d explored every nook and cranny, the movie was pretty much over.
Crisis averted, tantrums thwarted.

We had lunch right after this and my regular boy returned, not the crazed lunatic that we spent the morning with, which was a nice chance of pace.

You win some, you lose some.
Shrug.
He ain’t so impressed by fish is what I came up with :)
But here he is, in a happier moment gift shopping with Mama (holding what I believe is a Beluga whale…whose exhibit was conveniently closed for our visit–GRRR).

What’s better to a kid than the chance to touch stuff?
We’re always saying, “Don’t touch, don’t touch” so it makes sense that these areas are always such a kid crowd pleaser.
Greer is my only non-toucher.
She thinks these pools and the things that habitate there are “nasty!”
(I would have to agree. Mama is not a toucher either. I am standing either with my camera or by the disinfectant station.)

Heading in:

Ahhhh, the first hand hits the water.
It’s Rhyse…always Rhyse…

Creux did not hesitate to plop his paw right into the water! Most disgusting of all, he LICKED his hand right after! (I was so consumed by despair, wondering how does one sanitize a tongue???)

Charlie Creux-controls while Greer poses. She’d like you to think she’s participating.
She’s not, don’t be fooled :)

But she’s ALWAYS happy to participate for the camera!

Yikes.

Crazies in the hole!

Muggin’ with Daddy before moving onward and upward!
What’s next?
Sting rays!

What a BUSY day we’ve had! We’re still sort of in the post-dinner, pre-bedtime thing but I decided to toss a little bit up here while Creux is happy to play beside me.
(So this will likely be cut short and continued at 11:00pm.)

I must say…we were a bit disappointed in this aquarium! I really was expecting something unlike anything I’d seen before but it’s just kind of your typical aquarium, done on a grander scale.
But even the grand scale seemed mostly like empty, open space.

That’s not to say we didn’t have a great time; we did! I just think we’d really hit the gold star as far as fish oogling is concerned back in August and my guess is that the National Aquarium won’t be topped any time soon. We’ve seen a LOT of “tanks” in our thirteen years of parenting and have never come across one as unique before.

Despite my “three out of five stars” rating :) I’m happy that we had the chance to go and the kids all enjoyed themselves tremendously and that’s what it’s about in the end!

We had to DRAG them inside. Obviously.

Jellyfish are fascinating to me–I could watch them all day.
Unless of course, they are floating by my children on the ocean waves.
THEN, I am the fascinating one…and not in a good way.
(Because it involves me flying off my blanket, straw hat be damned, racing towards the shore screaming like a banshee.)
But these jellyfish, why they’re as gorgeous as the little pig-tailed cutie mesmorized by them here:

This part of the aquarium was pretty cool–you walk in and you’re inside and underneath the water! Every so often a wave would crash overhead and you could see it burst and bubble up everywhere.

View from above:

Just about the only moment in the whole day that we were standing in the same three feet. Our kids, for whatever reason, like to divide and conquer big, crowd-filled spaces.

There were lots of great, kid-sized peep-holes scattered all over the place which were fun for my small ones to climb into and press noses to windows.

The standard, walk-through water tunnel:

Scuba mans spies woman with camera, waves. Wasn’t that nice?

Creux witnesses waving scuba/fish/thing and is greatly perplexed by the entire exchange. He’s really not sure WHAT it is that he’s seeing!

Handsome, thirteen-year-old fish lover:

REALLY big sting-ray. Like mutant-sized. Really.

Largest tank I think I’ve ever seen, featuring gigantic whale shark:

I’m trying to split these photos into small batches so that my stop point for now :)
I’ll hop on as my time frees up and load some more.
Greer is anxious for me to share her faaaaavorite part of the day. (And I don’t think anyone will be surprised once they see it!)