Our Adventures in Chattanooga

Uh-oh! Abbie's driving. =)

the view from Lookout Mountain

After the flood hit various parts of Nashville, some parts of Franklin and surrounding areas, we just decided that we would head to Chattanooga with Matt. He had been planning to go there for work and we've been wanting to go for a visit sometime. Anyways, while Matt worked, the girls and I explored. We arrived in Chattanooga Monday night. On Tuesday morning, we headed out to the Creative Discovery Museum which is a really cool children's museum. Matt was using the car so the girls and I walked to a bus stop a couple of blocks away from our hotel. They have a free electric bus system that is actually pretty good. We had a wonderful time at the Creative Discovery Museum! We even decided to eat lunch there in their cafe which was nice and easy and then we were able to explore the museum some more. I didn't take a lot of pictures there but they had so many different kinds of exhibits including water play, stuff about boats, tons of musical instruments, a couple of arts and crafts areas, pretend play areas, and more.
That afternoon, we headed back to our hotel so that Abbie could get a nap. Sophie rested for a little bit and then later that afternoon, Matt took her swimming because our hotel had an indoor pool. That night we drove around a little and went to Point Park which is on Lookout Mountain. Then, we came back and went swimming for a little bit.

Aquarium Re-do

a beautiful butterfly

some of the penguins

Look, Abbie! Some of the fish look like Nemo!

This post is dedicated to you, Mimi! I don't know why the pictures showed up before and then all of sudden they were messed up. I reposted!

On Wednesday, the girls and I headed to the aquarium. One of the people who was in Matt's inservice class gave us free tickets which was so nice! We headed to the building with the Ocean animals in it first. There were butterflies, penguins and many other fish there. We loved seeing all of the butterflies and Sophie really enjoyed the penguins too. They had color-coded tags for the penguins and then you could read what their names were at the exhibit. Sophie loved seeing all of the little tags on them and finding out their names! The aquarium is a big place. We got through the 1st building in about an hour but we had to stop and take a lunch break in the middle of the other one (the freshwater fish building) because it is so extensive. The girls saw most of it and then Matt took Sophie back later that day while Abbie was napping so he could enjoy it too. Sophie was excited about the sea turtle which weighed about 300 pounds. Sophie told her daddy that she had seen a "Gi-normous" turtle. Isn't that funny? We enjoyed the aquarium-seeing the turtles, alligators, fish, seahorses however Abbie didn't want anything to do with the enormous crabs!

Chattanooga Choo Choo

The girls beside the "Chattanooga Choo Choo" train

Sorry it's taken me a while to finish posting about Chattanooga. This week, Matt was out of town a lot and the girls have been waking up very early! At nighttime, I've just been pretty tired! Anyway, for our last morning in Chattanooga, we decided to head over to the Chattanooga Choo Choo Museum and hotel. It used to be a huge train depot. Some local businessmen bought it and saved it from being torn down many years ago. Now, it serves as a hotel with a restaurant or two in it. It is beautiful inside the old train depot and it has lovely gardens outside that you can walk around. The girls inside seeing some fish in the pond (I'm glad of that but it was a little funny to me since we had just been to a huge aquarium the day before and here they were looking for a few fish in the pond.) There is a small museum that you can visit that has model trains in it. There is also an old trolley that you can ride. The girls enjoyed taking turns being bell ringers as we rode the trolley on a short ride. They also made sure that we remembered that they wanted to ride this small electronic train before we left. =)

We had a great mini-vacation in Chattanooga!

A Family Celebration

Sophie's about to enjoy a cupcake!

our family-yes, we are looking different directions but at least we're all smiling!

Abbie & Sophie love playing with their cousins-here's Abbie & Sierra hanging out!

One of Sophie's favorite gifts was a Barbie head where you can style her hair with tons of accessories. Here, the girls are playing together somewhat nicely. Sharing toys is always a challenge at our house.

On Saturday evening, we had planned to have a birthday dinner at our house to celebrate Nana and Sophie's birthdays. Nana's birthday is on April 30 and Sophie's is on May 1st. Well, Saturday it just rained and rained and rained. Our area received 10-12 inches on Saturday alone. Some of the roads around us were closed on Saturday afternoon, including I-65. It ended up some of the family who had planned to come on Saturday night were not able to make it because their street was flooded or they just realized how bad the roads were. We had a birthday dinner but Nana and Paw-paw didn't get to make it until later that night. Aunt Patti, Uncle John, Randle and David were able to come. It was a nice surprise that Uncle Mike, Summer and Sierra were able to come because the girls had been at the Cool Springs mall when tornado warnings started coming in so that they couldn't leave the mall. It continued to rain all day on Sunday too and it has caused a lot of people around Nashville to lose their homes or have significant amounts of flood damage.
On Saturday night the tornado sirens started going off after we went to bed but no tornadoes touched down. On Sunday morning, after watching the news, we decided to try to head to church. It was barely raining at our house. When we got to Brentwood though, it started really pouring. We made it to church but parts of Franklin Road already had significant amounts of water flowing over it. Our church didn't have power. We decided to just head home and hang out. Matt was afraid that if we went somewhere else for church, we might not be able to get home since so many roads were already flooded and it was raining so heavily. We already knew from talking to my mom that several streets in the Crieve Hall were badly flooded. I think we made a good decision because many parts of Nashville were badly flooded on Sunday. It's the worst disaster I've ever seen in Nashville!

Sophie's 5!

Sophie riding the carousel

Sophie's Barbie cake

Emerson and Sophie eating cake

Sophie is so excited to be eating pizza and celebrating with her friends!

Sophie turned 5 on Saturday, May 1st. For some reason, this birthday seems really hard for her mommy to swallow because it means that she'll be starting kindergarten in a few months. We decided to celebrate Sophie's birthday at Chuck E. Cheese's this year with some of her friends. We had it on a Thursday night which was great because it wasn't crowded and we did before all of the storms came over the weekend! The kids ate pizza, played games, and ate cake. Abbie was pretty scared of Chuck E. Cheese, even the electronic one.

Buddy the Clown

Sophie & Buddy, the clown

Mr. Buddy made each of the kids a balloon animal. Sophie's Paw-paw knows Mr. Buddy and he really wanted to have the clown come for Sophie's birthday. Paw-paw arranged it with Sophie's teacher, etc. The kids enjoyed it but it did take awhile for Mr. Buddy to make the balloon animals. Also, it was kind of interesting because he is hearing impaired. He can read lips however, the kids got kind of restless after waiting for a little while as he made the balloon animals.

After Mr. Buddy finished making the balloon animals, we went back to Sophie's class and had ladybug cupcakes.. Mama, Daddy, Paw-paw, and Uncle Phil were able to be there. Sophie had specially requested ladybug cupcakes. She also got to bring a "me' bag where she brought special objects that she could show and tell the class about.

More pics from Chuck E. Cheese's

Grady loved playing ball

Miss Kate whose birthday is one day after Sophie's

Can you tell Abbie enjoyed eating her cake?

Carley & Sophie with Chuck E. Cheese

All in all, the kids had a wonderful time at Chuck E. Cheese's. It was a pretty easy party to have and we had a good turnout. I hope Sophie will have some happy memories from her 5th birthday!