Road Trip part 2:: The Aquarium

The Georgia Aquarium is AH-MAZING. That is pretty much all I can say. But I will elaborate since this is a blog, sorry.

The layout is great because you don't have to do the exhibits in any certain order, read:: you don't get stuck behind that guy that reads every plaque and won't let anyone else in to see. When you go into the aquarium you are in a big open space and all around you are themed "rooms" to go explore as you wish.

We choose the touch tanks first. This area had low open tanks that everyone could just reach into and touch whatever happened to swim by. I thought my 2 almost 3 year old would LOVE this, turns out it just scared her. In her defense, the first tank was sting rays and sharks (tiny cute sharks). She warmed up to the idea by the time we got to the anemone tank, apparently squiggly pink things are always okay.

Then we headed to the amazon. River fish are big! This is the part that had the albino gators. They were so neat, the reason I have zero pictures is because my child was terrified of them. Turns out she knows Washburns never like gators.

 

 

Our next area was for the sea life that enjoyed the cold. Artic crabs, Octopi, Beluga Whales, and Penguins!!

 These freaked me right out, but Wesley loved the way the carefully kept eating the "marshmallows" (some kind of white sea tubey thing)

 I love this picture, but I think we were frustrating that poor octopus. She really thought she was going to get us at any moment.

Wesley could have stayed in the whale room all day. She adores them. By the end of the day we had been 4 times and she knew all four of their names.

This was such a sweet moment. Wesley just got up next to the little sleepy penguin and was talking directly to him. He just kept blinking at us like "Seriously, I am so tired."

I have no pictures from our next area because they weren't allowed. We had tickets to the dolphin show. I thought Wesley would love a dolphin show. Not so much. It was like a play with a ship, a sea monster and a prince. The dolphins save the day of course, but only after lots of thunder, lightning and fire. She was terrified. She wanted to leave the entire time (30 mins) and it wasn't allowed. She had to make it through. I tried bribing, soothing, threatening, feeding....it didn't matter, she wanted out. We did make it through and after it was over she said she loved it, through tears. She even picked a dolphin as her one treat at the end of the day. She will tell you that was her favorite thing she saw at the aquarium.


Back to the fish. Big fish. Length of a school bus big. Meet the whale shark. My favorite of the day.

Too cool. And, as it turns out, super sweet. The whale shark is very docile, mainly because their throat is the diameter of a ping pong ball, so that's the biggest size fish they can eat. His much smaller cousin, the tiger shark, can dislocate his jaw when he eats, which makes him one of the deadliest.

  

The final exhibit was the tropical waters/coral reef sea life. The first hallway was really dark so that you can see the phosphorescent jelly fish. I hate jelly fish, but you could not help seeing these particular jelly fish as beautiful.

 

We wrapped up our day relaxing in front of this:

Not bad, eh?

I have left so much out, these were just the high points. To say the least, I highly recommend this as a destination for all ages. And Atlanta is only 6 hours away. It was a very easy road trip and I thought it was wonderful, I hope the other road trippers felt the same way. I sure enjoyed their company!

Road trip part 1: Shopping and Sleeping-ish

Me, Mom and Wee hit the road Tuesday morning for a little Fall break road trip. Our only plan was the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta on Wednesday, everything in between was just gravy. Mom and I have been having official "road trips" every year since 2005, but this was Wes's first go. Needless to say things were a bit different with an almost 3 yr old in tow.

First big difference, you do not "make good time" when a certain somebody has to potty every hour and a half...... Second difference, conversation is really hard when the kid in back is wanting someones attention at all times. But that's okay, the trip was for her and we had an iPad chocked full of princess movies.

So our first adventure was the outlet mall in Leeds, AL. This was Wes's first real experience with reasonably priced retail and I thought she took it very well. She ended up with a new fall wardrobe, fall boots, and a fairy costume. Mom stocked up on audio books and stocking stuffers, I found...glasses(outlet shopping fail). In all fairness we did really need new glasses.

Wesley especially loved entertaining the young ones at the play area. Meet the three year old girl version of Charlie Chaplin. Once she figured out falling over made people laugh it was on.

 

Then we attempted a few planks.

The last one is my favorite, love that arabesque.She gave up on planking and decided just to sit pretty. I came up with several captions for this, but none are appropriate. Think Austin Powers.

We headed out for dinner next, but not before we had our new boots on!

After dinner we powered through rain, construction and darkness to make it to Atlanta to check into our hotel. Mom and I couldn't wait to get some rest. Wesley immediately changed into her new fairy costume and politely asked if we would turn on the "Pointer Sisters" so that she could have a dance party.

We finally all fell asleep around 11pm. But have no fear we did not oversleep the next day. Wesley was up and ready to go at 7am EST, because she knew we were headed to the aquarium! She had on her clothes and make up before I even had my contacts in!

We headed to the aquarium soon after and our story continues there........

October Designs

I started blogging as a public platform for my sewing, but I haven't been posting about sewing. My bad. I do sew, almost everyday, but then more important, exciting, fill-in-the-blank things happen and I blog about that instead. And since I don't even blog about all the things we are doing, sewing posts fall by the wayside.

To rectify this, for now, I thought I could put together an October applique montage.

Here is a three pumpkin design I did for an adorable little boy that belongs to one of Matt's coworkers.

I thought it turned out great! I loved being able to use three separate fabrics for the "orange" pumpkins. I mean we all know how much I "love" orange (bluh) so I am I always looking for a way to take that lovely color down a notch.  All kidding aside I do love to work with fall colors, they all play off each other so nicely....almost like someone designed it that way in nature or something.

Next I did a simple pumpkin design for a friend who wanted to be able to attach the design herself to a jumper. The thought being that she could then switch it out for another seasonally appropriate design later. One jumper, multiple seasons. Genius! That is why I did this one on felt and then cut it out. The curly cue vine may get sacrificed, as I'm not sure how to cut that out anymore.

And finally I made my own child a pumpkin that she could really appreciate. Cinderella's pumpkin carriage!

I altered this design a bit from it's purchased form. It had a window in the middle, which I deleted because I wanted her initial on the carriage and it didn't work on top of the window.

** Side note, most of Wesley's things only get a W not her monogram. I am not against monogramming. Quite the opposite. I just gave my child the worst possible combo for a monogram W's are wide and her middle name starts with an E which is skinny. So when you try to place it you've got a wide, swoopy W in the middle and another one on the left, then this skinny little E on the right. It looks completely unbalanced and so I always end up deleting the other letters. I am on the lookout for the perfect monogramming font that doesn't have the swoop OR makes a "fatter" E.

Back to the design, the wheels could have had fabric in them but I left them blank. My reasoning being it already had four different fabrics working and sometimes perfectly cute appliques are ruined by one wrong fabric choice. It is harder than you think to find 4 or 5 adorable fabric prints that coordinate perfectly! I have learned to err on the side of caution and incorporate solids and simple prints like dots or gingham. But then I see designs online with mixed prints that turn out so great?!?! Maybe I'll get better with time. My favorite is when people (Beka!) just give me fabric and tell me exactly what they want, then I don't stress about my fabric choices.

To wrap up, here are some pictures of my favorite model in her new fall shirts, ready for Crimson Tide domination and going to the ball!

Happy Fall Y'all!

Lawyered

I've often told my lawyer friend that we think Wesley may grow up to be a lawyer, because she "lawyers" us daily. Was that enough lawyers in one sentence? Anyway, she asked me for an example, and of course at the time I couldn't actually think of one.

See, Wee doesn't argue like a normal 2-3 year old (so far). No screaming tantrums (yet). No flat out saying "no" to Mom and Dad (up to now). Her favorite words are "maybe" and "I was just....." Lawyer.

So here is an example that happened today.

We were on a walk and I was addressing Wesley's recent penchant for arguing. We talked about how if Mommy or Daddy says "no," we don't need to discuss it anymore. I told her we were adults, and children do not question or argue with adults. I asked her if she thought she was being a polite princess when she argued. I mean, do princesses fuss at their parents?

Her response:: "Ariel told her Daddy no."

Lawyered.

She's not even 3 yet.  Crap.