Mom and Dad's ATL Highlights

There is just too much to post, so here is my mom and dad's trip in highlights:

• Celebrating Dad's birthday.... I painstakingly ordered the cake a week before...pistachio almond from Coldstone, with a very special Marsh Girl birthday wish....enough to feed 12. However when we picked up the cake, it was the size of a tea cup plate, seriously.
  This led to a lot of fun, such as me asking the girl, "12 people???? This feeds 12 people???? I guess you don't know my family!!!!" We lovingly refer to our ice cream portions as "D bowls" which is easily half this cake.


• Amelia just said, "Mom, I think they made that cake for leprechauns." The next day they were reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and had to write a little story about what else the caterpillar would eat. This is what Amelia wrote: he ate a cak. it was the smolist cac evr. Her teacher had no clue what she meant, but we laughed for five days about it.
• Friday we took the girls to the American Girl Doll Bistro. We had a fabulous time and a yummy dinner. The dolls got make-overs and new outfits and we had a blast.
  

• Saturday Mom and I decided to go ahead and take the girls to a birthday party. I mean, this was a BIRTHDAY PARTY! It was at the police lodge (a tin, manufactured building on Spot Road) complete with DJ and dancing for the first hour, a Hannah Montana impersonator for the second hour and food, cake and presents the third hour. After finally finding the place in a serious down-pour, we went in and started jamming. Twenty minutes later, we can see all the parents and their friends (all police officers) on their walkie talkies. We knew SOMETHING was going on. The next thing we know, they hurry all of us into a tiny hallway--like a closet---and tell us that a tornado is heading our way.
• My mom and I realize that we need our purses and cell phones. So, I leave the shelter into a complete hail storm and retrieve them. I also ran into "Hannah Montana" being dropped off by her mom, but they hid her until we could come out of the shelter.
• Then, the storm hit. It was the worst, scariest thing in the whole world...20 5-6 year old girls, some without moms there, and the rest of us adults trying to be calm for them, huddled in the closet. The power went out; the girls were so scared. None of us had phone service anymore, so we gave the girls our phones to give them some light and all said our silent prayers.
• We could see all the officers on their walkie-talkies....and HEAR the dispatcher saying that it is headed down Spot Road and would be at our location at 1:38. It was the scariest five minutes of my life.
• My friend called (not sure why my phone only got an incoming call) and said that the tornado was hitting Hampton (my subdivision). I knew my dad was reading upstairs and Dave was at the gym. I had no clue how we would let me dad know to take cover, and we were sick with worry about him.
• The storm went over and the girls came out. There was no power for Hannah to sing, so she painted nails and the party went on. Then "Hannah's" mom comes running in screaming and crying because she had just gone to Kroger and they moved all the people to a back room and told them the tornado was on Spot Rd. and heading that way....she had just dropped her daughter off at the party on Spot Rd., so she jumped in her car and faced the storm to make sure her daughter was okay.
• Mom and I started noticing that all the officers were getting on their walkie-talkies again, so we decided to leave. Amelia inisted on putting up her umbrella to get out to the car, which got Mom drenched trying to get it in the car. We got all settled and knew we had fifteen minutes to get home before the next one hit. THEN, one of the officers comes RUNNING OUT to the car, screaming for us to get inside and grabs Mikayla to run her in.
• Once again, we were in hiding. This time a mom and daughter came in off the road...that's how bad it was. She couldn't even see and just ran into the first building she saw with cars.
• We made it home and watched the news and realized how devestating it all was. Ricky Sixx was okay, and Dave was home and we were all traumatized.
• Sunday we were sure that we couldn't go downtown to the aquarium. Dave kept telling us that the baluga whale had probably blown out of his tank and was flopping in the middle of Main Street. However, it was up and running and we had a fabulous time and it was a beautiful day!

• Please take note of the girls' fabulous outfits....Mom's only comment: "Ya know Chaun, I don't think I dare buy your kids clothes ever again. They sure have their own fashion sense, don't they?" Oh, and while we're on our attire, Mikayla really loved Granddad's. She kept asking him, "Why do you have flowers on your shirt????"

• The Sea Lions were my favorite because it was beautiful outside and the trainer was so good and so patient with the crowd. She asked if anyone had questions, and of course both my girls raise their hands. After answering all the adult's questions, she turned to Mikayla who asked, "What do they drink?" which was a great question...it turns out, that they don't. They get the water they need from squid. Then it's finally Amelia's turn and she asks, "Do you just catch the fish in the aquarium and feed them to the sea lions????" Mom and I were laughing so hard, that we were crying, but we couldn't let her see that. I think maybe you needed to be there, but it was so dang funny.

So, it was adventurous and crazy, but so fun and full of love that I never wanted them to leave. And guess what? When we are having scary times, don't we all just want our moms? Well, mine was here, and I was so glad! I'm also grateful that we still had so many good times to make up for the scary Saturday!