ATLANTA

Well this week Ethan and I tagged along with Danny to Atlanta. Danny had to go to some work related classes there and so we decided we wanted to see what Atlanta was about. I have lived here for almost 5 years and it is the first time I'd been to Atlanta. We drove the 5 hrs up which went well. Ethan did amazing, the only problem was he only too a 30-40 minute nap the whole day (which he is a 2 hour napper normally!) and then due to all the new surroundings was overwhelmed and took us till after 1am to get him to sleep. Our hotel was neat we stayed in a King suite. It had a king sized bed and a love seat couch which folded out to a full sized bed (that is where Ethan slept) We had a full sized kitchen (pictures below) which included a kitchen sink, toaster, microwave, 2 burner stove, full sized fridge and a dishwasher. It also included pots, pans and dishes. That was anew experience! Pretty cool! We got there Monday afternoon and stayed until the end of Danny's class on Thursday afternoon. We had fun. Danny went to classes Ethan and I went exploring on Tuesday to the Aquarium and the Coca-cola factory (which I'm proud to say I drove by myself and didn't even get lost in downtown Atlanta). Ethan loved seeing all the new sights and enjoyed pointing out every Exit sign, flag and garbage can around! He's a spaz! I even have a section just for Ethan below! On Wed we went back into downtown Atlanta headed for the Atlanta Zoo. Unfortunately I did get lost this time. We did however manage to drive around Turner Field, Georgia State University and even around the Train Depot where Ethan LOVED seeing all the trains (that's one of his new fav things). After being lost about 45 minutes I called my mom pleaded for her to look up on yahoo maps and help me find the way. I did and we had fun at the Zoo. Unfortunately my camera went to crap and although it worked that morning before leaving the hotel, it didn't work at the zoo. I did buy a disposable camera but I haven't used up all the exposures yet so those pictures will have to way. Sorry to say I won't have pictures on here for a while because I have to wait to save up money for a new digital camera. But I will get my mom to take pictures when I can and hopefully give you more than nothing. But please excuse the future lack of pictures! Overall we had a blast, weather was great for our adventures but still bad for Atlanta. The drought down here is so bad Atlanta only has a couple months left of drinking water in the reservoir. As nice as it was being around people and back with hills and pretty scenery we are glad to be home!

THE AQUARIUM
(sorry about the blurry photos my camera was having issues. This was the day before it bit the dust!)

This sea turtle was rescued and rehabilitated and was about to be released back into the wild.

Ethan enjoyed Deepo the fish.


The only picture of Ethan I could get. He was determined not to sit still or pose for me at all today!
Here we got someone to take our picture in front of the whales.

PENGUINS!
I loved the jelly fish they were so pretty!

I think this is such a cool picture of Ethan in front of the Jellyfish tank.
The Garden eels.
Shark! RUN!
The water tunnel
This tank was at least 20 feet tall by 50 wide!

Crashed cargo!
careful piranhas bite!
These are the whale sharks. They were 20 feet long and the Aquarium had them UPS'ed from Taiwan! I bet that cost a pretty penny!

These crab where huge! Yet no where near their full size. These ones had the body the size of a large dinner plate and legs that were probably 2-3 feet long!

This was another HUGE tank, probably close to twice the size of the one above! The guy there was pointing out the grouper, they are now endangered (so don't eat grouper!) and these ones were small at 200 lbs, full grown they can been 7-8 hundred pounds!Groupers also don't reach maturity until they are like 15-20 years old. That is why they are endangered because they can't reproduce fast enough. We keep fishing them faster than they can reproduce!

This guy was big too (below) you can see him compared to the guy in the picture above.

The seals were so active this was the only picture I could get that wasn't one big blurr!

These are some more of the 20x50 foot tank they had. I was able to go back through places while Ethan napped and get more pictures!

COCA-COLA

Coke signs from all over the world.

Ethan LOVED this bear. His eyes blinked and mouth actually moved. I'm still not sure how the person was controlling it because it was too tall for a person to have the head there and the arms below. But Ethan gave him hugs, high fives, played chase with it (the place wasn't busy at the time and we were the last to get pictures with him so the bear was able to interact with ethan by himself) Ethan was cracking up laughing and having a blast. Although ethan didn't appreciate the bear grabbing his blanket in his mouth. I thought there were going to be tears, but the bear noticed and gave it back and all was forgotten. After all the fun we said goodbye and ethan (without us saying to) blew the bear kisses and waved as we walked away.

All the olympic torches.

ODE TO ETHAN

(we do have more pictures of exit signs but they are on the disposable camera and I don't have it developed yet) Ethan never failed to point out every exit sign and with Enthusiasum. He is also big on pointing out EVERY flag we saw on the way to and from Atlanta and around town. Crazy kid. Would announce them all with a enthusiastic "one more!! one more!!".