First Family Vacation

I can't begin to express to you how busy our lives have been lately. With work, church, family...it never ends & the family business has been the busiest EVER since Leslie started it over 25 years ago! He said he has never seen it like this...so it's no surprise that Matt has had to travel a lot & has been out of town several weeks at a time. 

I also have had a lot more responsibilities with church & family since my mother in law has been in & out of the hospital, all while taking care of 2 kids & making sure they are getting in plenty of activities as well. Sometimes we get so busy that I feel the need to get them out of the house for awhile...play dates with friends really help, shopping & even just going outside to play in the sprinkler has allowed me to take a breather.

When Greyson turned 2, he had a Thomas the train party & has LOVED playing with his train table. Every year, Thomas comes to town in the spring & I thought it would be fun to make that his special birthday present since his party was themed around Thomas & Friends. We just had to wait a few months before we could go...between our schedules & all that we had going on, we were not able to make it to the one in Alabama.

The next closest, Day Out with Thomas, was in Chattanooga, TN. There were 3 dates to choose from...we finally nailed down a date & made it work. Matt was called out of town that exact weekend, but it was the last weekend for Thomas, & we had already bought the tickets. He came home early from his trip & we were still able to go.

The neat thing about it being in Chattanooga, was that we were able to make it an overnight stay & do other things! I called it...our First Family MINI Vacation!

We booked a room at the Chattanooga Choo Choo & got the River package that included passes to the train museum, a conductor hat for Greyson, & tickets to the aquarium & imax theater.

Everything was pretty much themed around trains except for the aquarium! We spent the first day at the Choo Choo just sight seeing, shopping & eating. We checked out the museum & walked around the beautiful gardens. Greyson got to sit on the big train & ride a little one too!

We ate at a really fun restaurant that had live music & wonderful food. All the waiters & waitresses were the performers & they sang REALLY good! The next day we took a few pictures of the inside of the lobby at the Chattanooga Choo Choo...it was the original depot for the train that used to come through there & had lots of neat historical factors we got to check out. The outside was huge!

Then we took a trolly to the Tennessee Aquarium! It was a lot of fun! Greyson loved seeing all the fish & different sea creatures. We went to the freshwater side first, but the ocean side was my favorite.

 Greyson loved pointing out different fish & in this particular photo he said, "There's Nemo!" and it really was! haha

They had lots of neat waterfalls & places to walk through...not JUST fish but all kids of birds & tropical things too!

We got to touch a shark & they had really neat stingrays & other creatures you could "pet" & feed. At this age, Greyson is pretty fascinated with all kinds of animals. We heard lots of "ewws", "awwwws" & "What is that?"

Our family photo with some penguins haha

Rilynn slept most of the time, but when she was awake she seemed to really enjoy looking at the animals. She laughed when these 3 penguins would race by...they just went round & round.

NOT one of my favorite animals! That big anyway...=)

This was probably the neatest part of the aquarium! The underwater caverns. You felt like you were really under the water with all the fish. 

After the aquarium, we went back to our hotel & had lunch in the Pizza Train Car...it was more for the experience than anything =) Greyson sure thought it was cool that we got to eat on a real train! Matt was clear up at the front ordering our food.

After lunch it was time for DAY out with THOMAS! There he is...the REAL Thomas! Greyson just kept saying "He's real!" over & over...haha 

Greyson was very curious about everything that was happening...we gave the conductor our tickets & boarded the train. There were lots of neat sites along the way...we saw a big nest with HUGE eggs in it under the bridge...I'm not sure what kind of bird they were for but it was neat to point things out.

Meeting Sir Topham Hatt was another highlight...he got studied over pretty well. =) 

Along with riding the train & meeting Sir Hatt, we got to see baby animals, watch a Thomas movie, visit the bubble station, the imagination station (where they had lots of train tables), got a thomas tattoo/sticker, & picked up a souvenir in the gift shop! 

He picked out the souvenir all by himself. A Thomas bowl, plate & silverware set! We use it A LOT!

Along with the aquarium, eating out & Day out with Thomas...it made for a pretty long day. We ended up skipping our Imax theater show because this little guy passed out in the car! He slept all the way home (2 hours) & went right to sleep once we got settled & everyone in bed for the night.

It was a successful mini vacation. We had a lot of fun & crammed a lot into our 2 day stay. It was definitely a high light of mine to see Thomas come to life in this little boys eyes. I even teared up a little when we walked into the station--we have had such a crazy year with moving, & having Rilynn...a new house & sibling is a lot for a little guy to take! So this was definitely something special just being able to take him to something that I knew he would love. We were able to give him LOTS of special attention & do something that was pretty much just for him...it was so neat to me! We do lots of fun things, but we won't ever forget this fun family trip!