Mini-Vacation

Well, this year, we were unable to go on a big family vacation so last weekend we took a mini-vacation to Atlanta. On Friday, we took the kids to Zoo Atlanta which was nice and went pretty much without incident. For dinner, we went to Dave and Buster's and had a blast! Ron and Bram played together and on the first game they played, they won 1000 tickets!

Afterwards, so that our adventure would seem "vacationish" we spent the night at the Drury Inn and Suites near Dave and Buster's. I did not have rooms in advance so we drove around trying to find a place to stay that had adjoining rooms. We have 6 people in our family and we rarely fit in a standard room. I did not realize that adjoining rooms were as scarce as hens teeth. The Drury Inn and Suites happened to be our fourth stop. I had made up my mind that if it looked clean, then we were staying. We settled for next door rooms. Jacey and Bram stayed with me in our room which was much larger that Ron, Erica and Darby's room. However, there was a trade off. Although our room was larger, it had been smoked in despite it being a nonsmoking room. I sent Ron to see if we could swap rooms. However, a baseball team had rolled in and they were booked solid. So, the best they could do was a bottle of Febreze. I sprayed it everywhere but still smelled like a Marlboro the next day.

The next morning, Jacey woke up whining that she still had water in her ear from the pool from the night before. In her most pitiful voice, she looks at me and says, "Mom, I don't want to be death." I told her I didn't want her to be death either. Hee. Hee. I love it when she gets the wrong beginnings and endings of words.

Let me begin this next paragraph with the following preface. I work in middle school and have often said that middle schoolers lose all of their brain cells. Some regain them and some never do. Darby is a 7th grader and, unfortunately, has been stricken with this horrid middle-school disease. That being said, I will continue. She is the only family member that wears contacts and/or glasses. For our trip, she had failed to pack any contact solution, contact holder, extra contacts, or glasses. So, when she took out her contacts at night, her solution was to put her left contact in a plastic cup with some water near the sink and her right contact in another plastic cup. She failed to tell anyone that the cups housed her valuable eyes. So, while cleaning up Saturday morning, Ron almost poured one of the contacts down the sink. Darby found it stuck to the bottom of the sink. Ron declared it far too germy to put in her eye. So, in the trash it went. We never found the other one. All we can figure is that Ron poured it in the iron when he filled it with water. She got a good chewing out for not packing anything at all she needed for contacts. We had just bought her new glasses to wear in the event of an emergency. So, maybe this was a hard lesson learned.

However, the evidence of lack of brain cells continued. As we headed for the elevator, Ron asks if everybody has everything. Darby realizes she has forgotten her cell phone. So, back they go to retrieve the cell phone. Then she realizes she has also forgotten her flat iron. They both ran to the elevator with the flat iron cord dragging. Geez. Anyway, we eventually got out the door and continued our day.

The World of Coke was very interesting and a must do while in Atlanta. However, never, ever go to the Georgia Aquarium unless you go during the school year while during the school day. Never. I repeat. Never, on a Saturday. Otherwise, you'll quickly realize that the fish have more room to swim that you have to walk. It was horrible!

All in all we had a terrific time, just 70 miles from home.