Atlanta

My mom and I took the kids to visit my brother and sister-in-law in Atlanta this past week....here is our story!

Less than an hour and half flight from PIA to ATL...should be easy, right? Not when your flight gets cancelled.  We were all loaded and ready to take off, but they couldn't secure the door, so we were all unloaded.  The pilot did hand the kids each a set of wings.  A mechanic was called in and it was quite the circus as we all watched from the terminal window.  End result...flight cancelled.  The line to rebook the flight was moving really slow, so I phoned my favorite travel agent, Brandon!  Within minutes he had me connected to a Delta representative.  The good news was that we had options.  The first one was to take the next available flight, which was the next morning.  Later flights out of BMI or PIA were already booked.  We could go on another carrier and go through Chicago and get into ATL at midnight (it was currently 11:00 am).  Upon further investigating we decided that Moline wasn't that far away and we could get on the 5:30 direct flight to ATL.  Johnny Pops to the rescue! He came and picked us up and after a short detour to pick up some very special night crawlers for his fishing trip, we were on our way! We really wanted to get in on Thursday because we had reserved tickets for LegoLand on Friday at 10:00.  

We arrived in ATL that night with a wonderful surprise greeting by David & Sara!  Sara helped take some of our luggage home and David went with us to rent a car and drive us home.  By the time we got the van rented, sat in a traffic jam and got dinner we finally arrived home at 11:30 pm - what a travel day!  The kids were rock stars as usual and we are ever so thankful for that!!  I will say that I wish they didn't ever turn off the seatbelt sign on the plane.  It just seems to signal to my kids that it's time to use the bathroom!  

Friday morning was our trip to LegoLand Discovery Center.  The kids had a great time and Uncle David had fun building with the kids too!

This person is made entirely out of Legos!

Elizabeth built a car to race, complete with a blue flower!

On one of the rides

Lego Cinema man entrance for the 4D movie

Uncle David building his tower at the earthquake table

It was very important that Elizabeth had her picture taken by all of these Lego animals :)

My brother and I built this around the kids.  As soon as we took the picture Grant promptly knocked it over in true boy fashion!

We went and grabbed lunch and then headed for home.  Aunt Sara was already home and working on dinner for us :) We all got our suits on and headed for the pool.  We came home later and ate dinner, put the kids to bed and had some nice adult time.  All in all it was a great day...

3:30 am Saturday morning rolled around and I woke up with tummy troubles.  At 7:30 Grant woke up and I told him to go get Ima.  He went and woke her up and whispered, "My mommy need you."  After a lot of speculation and debate I finally decided I wanted to go to a prompt care.  Two and half hours later, a bag of IV fluid and antibiotics I was "diagnosed"with food poisoning.  They can't confirm a food born illness without a sample.  With my food science background and my symptoms, I was pretty sure that's what I had too.  Besides feeling awful (we are talking stomach cramps comparable to child labor contractions) we had tickets to go to Stone Mountain that evening.  By the time I finished up at prompt care and picked up prescriptions the family only had a half hour to do the attractions before the laser/firework show started.  I hated to miss it, but I had to lay low at home.  I wished I would have  decided to get help earlier so that they could have enjoyed more of Stone Mountain :(

At LegoLand they had "mini Atlanta."  As we were passing through on our way out, I took a picture of the Stone Mountain replica...little did I know that was the closest I would get to it!

Stone Mountain 

David & Elizabeth at the top of the mountain at sunset.  Apparently Ima had the hebbie-jebbies!

  

We had a quiet day on Sunday.  Well, Grant threw-up  that morning, but that just seemed par for course!  We went to church and out to lunch.  We came home and hung out by the pool.  

At the playground.  If only we had the video of Uncle David going down the slide :)

Playing Legos

Watching The Brady Bunch with Aunt Sara

Monday we took the kids shopping, which went so bad we had to call the day a re-do at noon.  So we went out for lunch, found a new leotard for Elizabeth's dance class and had a another great evening with the family.

Cuddling with Uncle David while watching the Cardinals

Tuesday morning, 8:30, Grant throws-up again.  Ima says, "aren't you glad we weren't on the 9:00 flight?" Holy cow! What is up with this? I think that he had a mild case of the food poisoning that I had.  We did a few errands and headed for the airport.  After a gate change that was never announced we hear "Flight 4297 to Peoria has been delayed."  This is Elizabeth's reaction...(picture the saddest face ever) "Oh no, not again. You need to call David and tell him to come get us right now!"  Relax honey, it is only 20 minutes late!  

Until next time Atlanta!  Thanks David and Sara for everything!