Choo Choo's and Fish-y Fun

Since Michael had Good Friday off, we decided to load up the car and head over to Chattanooga (or Cat-a-goo-ga as it was called around our house) for a quick trip that we've been wanting to take for a while now. Knowing how much the boys both love choo choo's and fishies we thought it would be fun to take them to see both. Michael lived in Chattanooga for a few summers, and his best friend and old college roommate, Jim, still lives there with his family.


The entire way there Thursday night the boys were so excited that Ben would randomly squeal at the top of his lungs and say "yay!!! Cat-a-goo-ga!!! Drew continually asked "this is Cat-a-goo-ga, Daddy?" and when we finally answered 'yes, this is it!' they about came unglued. I'm still not sure why they got so pumped, other than we had been telling them about the choo-choos and fishies.


So Friday we got off to an early start, and here are the boys at the famous Choo-Choo. All I wanted was a good picture for their upcoming big boy room in front of the train. But I guess that was too much to ask. This was good as I got:And here they are asking for some pennies to throw into the fountain at the train station. I still can't believe they are both looking at the camera at the same time.

After we left there we headed over to the Aquarium to meet up with Jim and Jennifer and their two boys, Jacob and James. (It really took me back to that formal we had there almost 10 years ago, all you Phi Sig girls!) We hadn't seen them in several months, so it was really great to be together with such good friends again. I hunted and hunted through our pictures to find one on the computer of Jim and Michael back in their college days to look at side by side of this next one. I thought it would be so neat to see these two friends years later with all four of their boys. But they are all the old-school kind (which I'm sure Michael is thankful for!). So, this is all you get:

They were so fascinated by all the fish that swam right up to them and all the water. They really thought that every big fish was a shark. Here Michael is helping them touch the stingrays, which didn't really happen since standing very still and being quiet at the same time almost never happens. They truly didn't understand why the fishies weren't swimming to see them. Michael helping Drew touch one of the hundreds of butterflies that live in the butterfly conservatory. At the front of the Penguin Exhibit there are these huge penguin statues welcoming everyone. I'm pretty sure both of my little guys thought they were real because they both immediately ran up to them and gave them huge hugs and said hello to the penguins. I thought it was so sweet that Ben said "waddle, waddle, waddle" in the same rhythmic song that Diego does....possibly they've watched a little too much of that. Oh well! ;)

And we fitted all of this in before noon and boy were we tired after such an exciting morning. So we shared a couple of pizzas and hit the road back home. The boys had played so hard that they slept the whole trip back, giving us a nice little chance to have our own conversations and relax for a bit before the rest of our busy Easter Weekend. More pictures to come!

Happy Easter everyone!!