Our big summer vacation

O.K. maybe our vacation wasn't so big or so far away for that fact but hey it was a vacation away from home. All summer, Jon and I have wanted to take the kids and get away for a few days, but we really didn't have any money set aside for a vacation. All of our money that we have saved up is spoken for for other things we want to do. We were both getting a little crazy being home all summer long. In the past, we have taken off right after school gets out and head down to Disney (of course:) ) for about 10 days. But with our year long Disney passes expiring right before school got out that wasn't an option (that is why we went for Spring Break). It just seemed like school would never arrive. Anyway, We happen to fall into a little bit of unexpected money so with that we tried to figure out where and what we could do with it. We really wanted to go to Washington D.C. (mainly because all of our entertainment would be free) we would just have to pay for hotel, food, and gas. Well first off we are used to paying Orlando hotel/rental home prices (the cheapest in the world). Since our family is so big we would have to get 2 conjoining rooms or see about renting a house. After searching for a while nothing that I wanted to pay for was coming up in hotel rooms/suites/rental houses. After weighing all our options, it didn't seem like a good idea to go there. The main reason was we would take one day to drive up a day to drive back home and 2 days there. We only wanted to use 2 of Jon's vacation days because we are hoping to use his remaining vacation days right after Christmas and are hoping to go to Disney. Plans are in the works on how we are going to get the extra money for that trip. Hopefully things will go as planned. Anyway, we decided to check into a Marriott Residence Inn (it had 2 rooms, 2 bathrooms, a fold out couch, and a kitchen all for a great price) in Atlanta for 2 days and do a few things around the town we live in. The first day, we went to the World of Coke. Coke's headquarters are in Atlanta. They build a new Coke museum about 2 years ago. The new World of Coke is way better than the old one. I still think it is a little too pricey, but the kids have been wanting to go there for sometime now. They have a 4 D movie, some Coke art, old coke products and advertisements, a Coke bottle plant that they actually fill bottles of coke that they give you at the end of the museum, and the kids favorite part the Coke taste center. The drinks are divided by countries and you can taste different Coke products from that Country. Some are good, like the watermelon and others are horrible like the Beverly. I like just watching people try the Beverly for the first time. Most look like they are ready to throw-up. It is just that gross a drink. It was pouring down rain when we got to the museum so Jon dropped us off at front and then he parked the car. I forgot the camera in the car so I have no pictures of the World of Coke. That makes me a little sad. After that, it was getting to be dinner time so we walked over to the Phillips Arena (home of the Atlanta Thrashers hockey team and the Hawks (I think that is what the basketball team is called) ). It is also connected with the CNN center. Well in there they have a big food court (kind of like the ones in the mall but bigger). So the kids got to pick which restaurant they wanted to go to and after only having to go to 3 we all ate dinner. Then we checked into our hotel and went for a swim. The pool wasn't very big. The hot tub was almost as big as the pool. Then we went to bed. We had Hayden in our room with us, the girls on the couch bed, and the rest of the boys upstairs. Brenton was on the floor upstairs. At about 2am I could hear Connor. I took him to the bathroom and decided to lay with him so he would get up and start turning on the TV and light and waking everyone up. So I put Talmage down in my bed and tried to sleep with Connor. He stayed in bed the whole time but I don't think he ever went back to sleep if he did we both were asleep at the same time and it wasn't for very long. So that nights sleep for the both of us was terrible. The next morning Jon took half the kids to the lobby for some free breakfast. When he came back, I took the next group. I tell you this was the best breakfast we have had. Usually it is only continental breakfast and sometimes you get waffles, but this was called warm breakfast. So you got the main Continental breakfast items (cereal, fruit, yogurt, pastries, breads and juice) but we also had waffles, oatmeal, scrambled eggs, sausage, potatoes, biscuits and gravy. It was yummy. Then we went to Stone Mountain. Stone Mountain is about 15 miles from downtown Atlanta. It is the worlds largest piece of exposed granite. On one side of the mountain is Stone Mountain Park. At the park are different attractions to do.

Stone Mountain has a carving in it. It is the largest high-relief sculpture in the world. This is what it looks like.

It is a Confederate Memorial carving of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson. It is 400 feet above ground measuring 90 x 190 feet and recessed 42 feet into the mountain.

The first thing we did was take the tram up to the top of the mountain. We knew it was going to be a hot day so we wanted to get that done first.

Brenton, Connor, Talmage, Payton, Kennedy, Gretta, and Hayden on tope of Stone Mountain

Talmage on top of Stone Mountain splashing in a big puddle

Then we took the kids to what is called the Great Barn. It is like an indoor playground. It has slides and tons of balls all over the place. You can up the stairs and put the balls in guns and shot them down. or collect them and put them in different collection places and when the basket is full of these balls a big siren goes off and the ball dump out of the baskets all onto the ground again. Hayden and Kennedy liked putting then ball in this suction vacuum that sucked the ball up all the way to the baskets.

After that we ate lunch. We brought a picnic lunch to eat. We drove to a picnic area and got out and noticed tons and tons of bees by the garbage cans which were next to the tables. We turned right around and ate in the car. Then we went to a little museum. It basically has lots of old fashioned cars, bikes, nick knacks. Our favorite was the the player pianos. They had lots of them that all worked. You put in 25 or 50 cents and it played for a long time. Then we headed back to the hotel. I took a much needed nap with Hayden while Jon took the others swimming. Then we had some dinner and went back to Stone Mountain. We did the 4 D movie and rode the train. Then we got ready for the laser show. Every night in the summer they do a laser and firework show. It was fun. Since this was the 25th anniversary they added a few new songs. The new part was my kids favorite (they did Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, and High School Musical songs with laser pictures going along to the music).

It was a fun and long day. The next day was Saturday August 2nd (Kennedy's birthday).