Hot-lanta

We have been talking to Haley and Tio about going to visit them in Atlanta, or from the mouth of Analise "Hotlanta." Cheeto and the boys all had Monday off for Martin Luther King day, so we thought having a long weekend would be the perfect time to go. Cheeto's birthday was also Monday so it was kind of celebrating that as well. It was decided spur of the moment. I started getting the house ready to leave Friday morning and then started packing. I don't like packing the last minute. I had a lot of help doing so. I turned around for a minute and Analise had dumped an entire dresser drawer of hers in my suitcase. ARGH!!! We made it out of the 'boro about 3:30pm. We stopped to eat about 2.5 hours into the drive at a Waffle House. The kids LOVE their Waffle House!
There were 3 booths together but an older couple was sitting in the middle one. We couldn't all fit in one so we divided the sexes. Boys in one- Girls in the other.
At one point, Cheeto came to talk to Analise in our booth. I sat and watched a few groups come and give Cade and Kelson a double take. It must be weird to walk in and see an 8 year old and 5 year old sitting alone at a restaraunt in the middle of nowhere.
Analise wanted some milk and boy did she get it! I was so worried she would wet the bed at Tio's house. We got to Tio's about 10pm. We stayed up checking out there house and running off some wiggles until almost 11:30pm. Cheeto and I were exhausted. We had plans to go to the temple in the morning since it was so close and I could feed Addelyn and still make it through a session. However, a few of our kids had other plans. Cheeto and I combined might have gotten 3-4 hours of sleep. We decided that sleeping through a session was a waste of our time and very rude! We slept in and hung out with the family. Marcos had plans to taking us to Fernberg Museum but the cost to get in was greater than what we wanted to spend so we just went to lunch instead. He took us to a fabulous burger joint called Five Guys.

Best hamburger I have ever eaten.

They had this sign up. I just had to take a picture for my dad and brothers! They had peanuts you could munch on at the table. Would you believe that Cade likes fresh peanuts? Who would have thunk it? After lunch we took the kids across the street to use some gifts cards at Barnes and Noble. This also made for some new reading for the trip home. We simply hung out at Tio's for the rest of the afternoon. This was great for us. We like to just rest and enjoy each other's company. As we were getting ready to leave for dinner the kids and Tio decided they want to play outside for a minute.

Tio has a swing hanging from this huge tree in his backyard. It swings out over a ledge so I wouldn't allow Analise on it but the boys loved it.

Just before walking inside they saw a few snowflakes. Background story: Thursday night Kelson came home from school insisting he had to the "Snow Dance" because his teacher told if you do it it would snow. I didn't want him to get his hopes up but we did the dance anyway. It's pretty much freestyle. :) You also have to flush ice cubes down the toilet. Well, sure enough a few flakes fell. It had started to snow in Atlanta! The kids got all excited and started flushing more ice cubes. And everytime they did so, it snowed bigger flakes. Crazy kids!
Well, after flushing cubes and watching the snow... we finally got to dinner at a place called the Majestic. It was good but not as good as Five Guys! That may just be my opinion!

We got home and Marcos started working on a fire in his fireplace to cook some smores. Marcos, my kids, and smores are something that finds their way together. The kids thought cooking smores inside the house was awesome. Messy- but awesome! I hope they don't ask me to do the same thing. It will be something "special" to do only at Tio's.

We put the kids to bed.....

and started playing guitar hero. I missed the picture of Marcos with his shirt off trying to look like the guy on the game. We took turns trying to pass all the songs. This was lots of fun. We stayed up until our eyes could no longer focus. Addelyn slept much better that night. There is church building really close to Marcos. Unfortunately, only a Spanish branch meets there. I slept until about 9am and figured since Cheeto was out of bed he had decided to let me sleep and fore go church.2 minutes later he comes up and says "Aren't we going?" I didn't think there was anyway we were going to get all of us ready in 45 minutes. It was miracle! We did it and made it to church only about 5 minutes late. Phew! The church was tiny and felt like we were in the ghetto but I was glad we made the effort. Some came up to us hoping we were move in's. It was a pretty small ward. We had the most kids there.
We got home to find that Marcos and Haley had already made dinner and just had to wait for it to finishing cooking. We napped for a bit then ate. Haley did a fabulous job cooking. That roast was divine! We then went for a long walk to a park. I just have to say- Atlanta has awesome-unique parks!
This was like a merry-go-round. I'm surprised my kids could walk straight after being on this for almost 30 minutes.

Addelyn was very content being snuggled in her sling next to me!

Marcos and Haley walked back and brought the van back so the kids wouldn't have to walk. It really was quite the trek for them. We got back to eat cake with Cheeto.
Haley had decorated this with what she had on hand. All we ask is that she doesn't teach how kids how to spell anything! :) It was so sweet of her to do so. She asked what Cheeto wanted on it and he just grabbed a box of Girl Scout Thin Mints and said use this. So she did! Cheeto was just kidding but it really was good!

wow... leave it to my funny husband to sing to himself and give out spankings as well.

By the time we gave baths and put on jammies it was time to watch the Steelers game. I was glad to see them win. It's funny that Cheeto isn't a bit more excited that one of his teams made it to the superbowl. It would be great if they won. Then the Steelers would have won the superbowl both years that we got our little girls. What a sweet memory that would be! I don't want to jinx anything though!
We got up and just took our time getting packed up. We left about 10:30am. The kids are great travelers. We had little fighting the entire weekend. We got home about 4ish and were grateful that G'ma and Papa followed through with monday night bean night.

Thanks Haley and Marcos for a fun trip! We hope that we didn't drive you crazy and we can come again.

Funny Kid Quote of the Day
While we at the park, some other kids were telling ours that they were from New Jersey. Cade says, "We are from Virigina." My reaction, "What the?" Then Kelson says, "My name is Kelson. 'This is my sister Sassy but sometimes we call her Analise." Reaction: the same- "What the?" Are my kids confused or what?