A Great Weekend For Everyone

This post is written by Ryan:

This past weekend the girls and I wanted to give mommy a much needed and well deserved weekend of rest. So, Thursday afternoon we packed up the car and headed to Birmingham.

We got into Birmingham just before 4:00 local time. We went straight to the CLC to meet up with Bama. Lily took awhile to warm up, but soon she was her normal self running all over the place. Lynne gave her a fun orange ball that she had a great time throwing and chasing and throwing and chasing etc. Bama introduced her to the 1980's wonder that is air hockey. She loved playing and kept asking for more coins when the air stopped. Bama would tap the puck down to her and she would catch it, put it under her paddle and slide it back down to Bama. After each time she scored she would catch the puck and put it in her slot so Bama could score too. It was very sweet. Miss Susan got a great video of us playing. I hope we can get a copy. We got a quick tour of the new youth building which was very nice. Uncle Josh came by and we had fun playing with him too.

We soon went to the house to unpack and get settled. Bama had made a wonderful roast and mashed potatoes for dinner. They have two cats and a rather large dog. Lily sometimes gets nervous around animals but she seemed to do quite well. As the weekend went on she began to warm to them nicely. I think one more day and she would have been asking for Sadie (the big dog) to sleep with her. The cats were in their own world and didn't have much to do with us anyway. We all had a very good time visiting.

Friday we had a good time just spending time together. We got to see the rest of the renovations to the church. I hardly recognized it as the place I grew up. It truly does look wonderful. Thanks to everyone up there who was so sweet to the girls. Lily left with lots of stickers, and we turned down lots of candy. Friday night I got to go grab a pizza with Josh at one of my favorite pizza joints. It was great to catch up with him.

Saturday we got to go to the McWayne Center. It was wonderful. I did not remember how much there was to it. Lily had a ball and Mia did fantastic. The first thing we did was essentially a huge Light Bright. Lily spent tons of time with this. She would take the pegs and put them in the wall and watch them light up. They also had a giant walk-on piano similar to the one in the movie Big. That was fun too. They had a special area for kids kindergarten and younger. There were lots of play cars, trucks, tractors and other things to "drive". She painted a picture, played on the playground and played with the toys in the water tank. There was plenty to see and do there and I'm sure we'll go back next time we are in town. You Birmingham folks are lucky to have such a great place to go.

That night we went out to dinner with Grandma, which was a real treat. Our friend Jimmy came with us too. We ate outside before the weather got bad. It was a really nice night. The place we went was a Chicago style pizza place so the food takes about 45 minutes to prepare. We all took turns following Lily as she walked up the ramp on the sidewalk, around the bushes and back down the steps. She probably made that lap about 50 times. Another great night. I must say that through all of this Mia just tags along like a trooper. She is one cool kid.

Sunday morning we got up and went to church. Lily did great going to a new classroom. We were concerned she might not be very comfortable, but she went right in and did great. After the service we came back downstairs to get the girls and ran into a few old friends which was a real treat. We went and got some Mexican for lunch and Grandma and Josh's main squeeze Amy joined us.

Our plan was to go home and pack up after lunch and head back to Atlanta. The severe weather caused us to delay our departure by about 3 hours. There were tornado warnings from Birmingham to the Georgia border. We got on the road right about 5:30 and were home in just over two hours. Mia slept the entire ride home and Lily sang most of the way. It turned out to be a very easy trip. We were all glad to see Mommy after being away for so many days.

Speaking of Mommy, she had a great weekend too. Her weekend consisted of a little work, a little house straightening, a massage, a pedicure, a stack of magazines, several cooking shows from the food network, Tylenol PM and sleeping in late. We were so glad she had a good relaxing weekend. No one deserved it more than she.

So, it was a great weekend for everyone. I'm sure we will do it again over the summer sometime. We'll get pictures up soon too so you can see for yourself just how much fun we had.