On The Road to Disney

So I'm horrible at posting in a timely manner.  In this case, the post is about our trip to Disney World back in November.  To be fair, I didn't start blogging until Memorial Day, so don't judge me :).

Anyway, one brisk November morning (is 4:00AM really considered morning???), we packed up the Outback and our two sleeping boys and headed to the happiest place on Earth.  I took the first shift belting out Christmas carols (more on that later) while everyone else peacefully slept.  Our first stop was Nashville - 7 hours into the trip.  We had planned on going to the Loveless Cafe, but by 10:45 when we pulled up, there was no parking and lines out the door.  This was a weekday!  So McDonald's it was.  But I must say, I would love to actually have time to investigate Nashville.  It is after all the namesake of my new favorite sitcom.  Our final destination for the evening was Atlanta.  It took us for-ev-er to find our hotel in Alpharetta due to a lot of traffic.  We were pulling in there around rush hour, so it was poor planning on my part.  But we ate at a great little Greek place close to the hotel, and the boys were happy to be out of the car.

Boys armed with a goodie basket including Mickey hats (prefer these over Mickey ears because they actually have function), Nemo ring toss games, Toy Story cups (great for road trips), Buzz candy light spinners, travel Magna-Doodles, coloring book and crayons, Lightning McQueen and Mater cars, and Teddy Grahams for each.  

The next morning we woke up refreshed and headed to the Georgia Aquarium, and it was awesome - expensive, but awesome.  I would do it again in a heartbeat (you may want to get used to this phrase when I'm posting about travel).  I was most excited to see the whale shark.  Growing up I wanted to be a marine biologist and specialize in sharks.  I learned as much as I could about sharks, and even wore a shark tee from the Shedd Aquarium (again, don't judge).  But as soon as I learned that I would most likely get in the water with them, my fear kicked in.  As you know by my blog title, I'm not a dancing marine biologist.

The boys really enjoyed the touch tank. Mason was a little rough on the poor starfish.

There was a guy in the tank cleaning the windows (lower left corner).  The boys thought that was the coolest thing!

Doesn't it look like he's trying to tell me something - "Put me back in the ocean."

This is the last picture of Mason with these shoes.  Yes, in Mason fashion, he took off one shoe during the dolphin show, and we never saw it again.  Good thing I'm prepared and had an additional pair in the car.  

And here it is, folks.  We stopped at the aquarium just to see this beautiful creature.  I would have loved to get in the tank with it, but again, there were other sharks in there :).

Jake thought it was pretty cool too.

I wanted a picture of this dolphin because it says Atlanta.

Jake obviously wanted this dolphin.

We wrapped up our layover in Atlanta and made our way to our final destination.  It was another long drive, but we were thrilled when we saw this.