Our first Fun Friday: Aquarium and Hula's

On Fridays Geoff only has a morning lecture so after hanging out at home, we loaded up the younger two to pick Grant up from school at 3 and have some fun. We tested out our official Aquarium passes for a quickish tour before they closed.

This visit we focused on jellyfish (with a stop-by at the otters and penguins of course)

"If it ain't broke don't fix it" was going to be our mantra, as we planned to go to Gianni's for pizza- I mean it is simply incredible pizza- but we realized we've got a whole city to explore so we went to Hula's, a fun Hawaiian tiki restaurant. The boys surprised us by polishing off not only the white Mac n Cheese but also enjoying their calamari steak!

The timing of our Fun Friday works out well because you can go from school to the aquarium to a reatiarant (where it is still happy hour) and be home by 6:30. Win, win, win!

Enjoying a Hotel Christmas

When we realized that our coast to coast move would inevitably fall over Christmas I was bummed- I knew it would be different but I wanted to make sure it was a fun different, not a lame or boring different. We happen to be in Albuquerque NM for Christmas Eve/Christmas morning so here is what we did...

There was a family restaurant (Denny's-esque) in the same parking lot so we ordered 3 turkey/mashed potatoes/stuffing/corn/green bean meals to eat in our room. I was determined to not have McDonald's burgers and fries!

We set a tin of cookies and a gas station procured bottle of milk out by the fireplace in the lobby of the hotel and settled into bed in our matching Christmas jammies

 

Then at 6am we had arranged for the front desk to call our room and ask for Grant, telling him that there had been a delivery for him overnight. The boys were curious and headed to the lobby (though Grant did guess that maybe thats where Santa had left his gift) they saw that Santa had enjoyed his milk and cookies

The sweet man was so excited to hand over the santa sacks. (Geoff had left them at the front desk around 11pm the night before once the boys were fast asleep while I decorated the room)

 In all of the excitement of the wake-up call and learning that "Santa had found them" the boys didn't even see the paper tree and remaining presents that had been set up while they slumbered. It made it that much more fun when mid-santa-gift-opening Carter spied the set up!

All of the gifts had been in a cardboard box buried in the trunk so the boys had no clue they were traveling with us the whole time!  We had a magically, memorable holiday- and capped it off with a snow-filled visit to the Grand Canyon! Its nice to know that the wonder of the holiday can translate to even the most ho-hum situations, even a random La Quinta in the middle of the country

Pit Stops

After leaving Fayetteville we stopped in Durham. Mom had graciously taken the older boys for the last few days of packing- they had museum dates and playground time and were overall spoiled! We continued our perpetual Christmas after having done round one in DC with Brian and Kate a few weeks earlier, and then hit the road

The next stop was Snellville to see/ say "see you later" to /have perpetual Christmas #3 with Geoff's family. The highlight for the boys was a chance from Grandma and Dudad to see REAL LIVE SUPERHEROES a.k.a. tickets to see the Marvel Live stage show.

After passing through Louisiana we got a fun fun stop in Dallas. We stayed with my uncle and cousin and got to visit Shenaniganz, a fun entertainment center whose owners are the family of a sweet friend from high school. My cousin Kristen came to play too and we enjoyed the arcade, putt putt, go carts and bounce houses- my friend Nicki even left us a car trip survival kit at the front desk for us!

On the way out of town the next morning we stopped by the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. Once upon a time an art group installed 10 half buried Cadillacs off I-40 that people tag with graffiti. Nothing says Merry Christmas(Eve) like some spray paint so we added our own!

On The Road Again