A Long Weekend in Atlanta

Thursday July 8 we headed to Atlanta for a visit with Grandma Suzanne, Pop-Pop, Auntie Beth, Uncle Jared and...MAYA!!! We couldn't wait to meet her. Before I get to that, Steve and I were surprised by a new word in Ethan's vocabulary. We were waiting in line to board the plane at Logan and out of nowhere Ethan says "Stupid line". It caught us so off guard that we cracked up! However, his increased use of the word has not been cool and we're trying to discourage him now. We figured out that he learned it from Toy Story. These kids do retain everything!

We jumped right into the fun with a model Hummer from GS and PP. Ethan couldn't wait to put it together and daddy and PP were all too happy to oblige.



Beth and Maya came over for a visit the afternoon we arrived. She was asleep but I couldn't wait any longer to get my hands on her! As soon as she woke up Ethan came over to meet his first cousin.

Somehow we went the whole visit without attempting a family photo, but here's one of the Schoenholtz kids with their kids.

Thursday night Uncle Jared joined us for dinner and brought the little man lots and lots of toys. Ethan was in heaven as he pulled toy after toy out of the bag! One of the big hits was a foam rocket launcher that E couldn't wait to try.

Friday morning we went straight to the pool as little man loves water and the forecast was to have temps close to 100. It was not quite 95 when we left but we were dragging on the walk back to the house!

Friday night we went to Beth and Jared's for dinner and more quality time with Miss Maya. Ethan was excited to hold her and very proud to be the big cousin.

He even sang to her when she got fussy and she seemed to be into that.

Uncle Steve!!

Grandma with her grand kids. She was hating every minute of this... ;-)

While we were at Beth and Jared, a crazy storm blew threw Alan and Suzanne's neighborhood. We drove in and realized that all of the electricity was out in the whole place. Luckily Ethan was fast asleep in the car and went straight up to bed. The rest of us pretty much went to bed too since it was late and there's not a whole lot to do in the dark! The next morning we woke up to find huge branches from 2 trees had come down in the yard! They looked like whole trees themselves so the boys got busy with chainsaws and started the cleanup. As much fun as I'm sure that was, Suzanne and I opted to take Ethan to the Atlanta Children's Museum instead.

Ethan was very amused that he could actually milk a cow! OK, a pretend cow, but still...

As I came around the cow to get a better shot of the kid in action, the "cow" mooed and scared the crap out of Ethan! So this is the picture I got instead.

On Sunday Steve and Suzanne took Ethan to a place whose name is escaping me to check out their dinosaur exhibit. They had a great time but I forgot to get those pictures from Suzanne. While they were off having fun, I was home with Alan and sick as a dog. Ethan had a stomach virus the day before we left and I think that's what got me, but I had that plus flu-like symptoms and could barely get out of bed all day.

In the meantime, Ethan enjoyed a tractor ride with Pop-Pop...

and a little Dark Tower with daddy. This was a board game from when Steve was young and it was a big hit with the little man (and big man...).

We had a really wonderful visit with family we do not see enough of during the year. Thank goodness for Skype!