Atlanta 2010

Last week we loaded up in our sweet rental van and started the long drive to Atlanta, GA! Seriously, this was a sweet ride. I will just tell you that the day we had to return this van and get back into The Merk was a sad day. Kudos to Avis Rental Cars for blessing us- no, it was a total God thing- Avis was just the agent used. This was a brand new Chrysler Town and Country van. The Avis guy was taking the factory tape off it when we arrived! The girls had tons of space, 2 built-in DVD players and all the bells and whistles. It really made our drive much better! Thank you Lord.

Oh, the reason we went to Atlanta was to visit Marc's family. His Grandmamma, Aunt (Nana Kay), and Uncle and cousins. I had not seen his family in about 8 years since we first moved overseas, so it was long overdue! We had a wonderful time. Thanks Nana Kay and Uncle Jim for letting us take over your beautiful home!

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I just wanted you to see that I captured this rare moment of Addison sleeping. She does not like to be confined in her car seat so that made the 13 hour drive kind of miserable at times. The girl has some lungs! Poor Nana Kay got to experience the screaming several times.

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We drove to Tuscaloosa, Alabama that first day and decided to spend the night and drive the rest of the trip after some much needed rest. We arrived in ATL Wednesday, right at lunch time. On Thursday we got to meet up with a very special girl, Jesslyn. She spent last fall with us in Wales doing the gap year program and she is one of a kind! She happened to be in ATL for the day so we met up at The Varsity and hung out all afternoon with her! Her and Cerys were fast friends last year and Cerys was more than surprised to see Jesslyn. We had kept it a secret just in case it did not work out.

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Addison eats anything and everything- except pickles. So she loved her "naked dog" from The Varsity. (Naked Dog- a plain hot dog. Naked Dog Walking- a plain hot dog to go!) If you have not been to The Varisty, you need to go. It's just a huge part of ATL's history and a fun place to go. It's not healthy, but it's kind of fun. And the Frosted Orange is yummy!

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We walked over to Olympic Park and played in the water rings. I have a picture somewhere of me and Marc when we were engaged one Christmas standing in the middle of these rings. That was the first time I had met Marc's family! Marc's Grandmamma is probably one of the sweetest people. I remember two things about her. One thing was that week that we stayed with her she gave me my first Krispy Kreme doughnut. I had never heard of them! And every morning when I woke up she would cup her hands on my face and ask "Did you sleep honey"

Part of our trip this time was to visit her, she is declining in health and it was tough to see. I got very emotional while we introduced her to the girls. She probably did not know we were there, but she said 2 things VERY clearly that made be bawl. She looked at Bailey and said "Well aren't you a pretty little thing!" (in her southern accent!) and then she just looked around and said "I love you." I was so proud of Marc going to visit her, I knew it would be tough and it was.

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God truly does know each of personally and where we are in life! We didn't know until we arrived at Nana Kay's house that Brother Jim Henry would be preaching at her church that Sunday! Marc grew up at First Baptist Orlando where he was pastor and they always furloughed there. Brother Jim is one of Marc's heroes and it was just so neat to see him and get to visit with him. The title of his sermon was "When your back is against the wall" and it was just exactly what we needed at this time in our lives. I was just in tears as I felt God speak to us and just to know that God had planned this for us! All of the weekends to be there, He knew!

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Sunday lunch- all of the family gathered for spaghetti. Here are the girls enjoying lunch!

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After lunch we went down to this nature reserve in Peachtree City and let the kids play in the creek and mud. Our girls are cautious about stuff like this, but their second cousin Isabele was not! She was picking up frogs and tadpoles! They had a blast though and we spent a good part of the afternoon out there.

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Marc's cousin's wife- Jennifer (Isabele's mom) makes the cutest clothes! She has her own Etsy store and she blessed us with some cute skirts for the girls and a pair of pants (trousers) for Cerys. She also gave me 2 precious pacifier clips. She is so talented.

On the way home we got caught in some Talladega Superspeedway traffic. That was a hoot. We saw so many cars with "Dega or bust" or "Dega bound." Marc wanted me to take a picture of the race track as we were driving by- how about that timing?

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Oh, this is better-

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We drove the whole 13 hours back home in one day because the rental had to be returned. We got late Monday night and got up at 8am to return the van. Addison screamed a good part of that time again, the girls watched movies and colored and I tried to keep my sanity so I had my ipod in trying to drown out the crying. Marc drove us all the way home, what a trooper!

The best part of that day was stopping at Cracker Barrell somewhere in Texas for dinner. However, did you know that they no longer have Banana Pudding? It was almost enough to make me start screaming.
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