Sweet Home Alabama!

Well, we are adjusting to life after vacation. We had an amazing trip with absolutely beautiful weather. Couldn't have asked for better weather while we were down there. It was around 80 degrees every day and sunny. We had rain one afternoon, but it didn't start until around 4:30 in the afternoon and only lasted a few hours. By about 7:00 it was done. The coldest day was the day before we left to come home and it was a frigid 73 degrees (haha). It was incredible.

While we were there we did so much sight seeing, it was great! Ric's aunt lives in a beautiful private community with many things for the kids to do such as basketball courts, a soccer field, a playground, tennis courts, walking trails, a lake which is great for fishing in, and many stores along with a few restaurants. It was very peaceful in this community and all of us thoroughly enjoyed our time with Judy.

But, we also wanted to get out and *see* Birmingham. I had done quite a bit of research online before we left because I didn't want the kids to get bored while we were there. I found a list of the top attractions that Birmingham has to offer and we visited 3 of those attractions. Our first stop was to the McWane Science Center in downtown Birmingham. What fun! The kids had a blast there! That was probably the most enjoyable day that we had there. The kids enjoyed the dinosaur exhibit which was there, and they could "dig" for dinosaur bones. There was also a huge exhibit on weather, another one on the techniques used in making a cartoon, and of course Lauren had a great time in the preschool area. We could have stayed all day there! Another big attraction there was the aquarium that they had. We saw a huge eel, many saltwater fish from the Gulf area, some fresh water fish, an octopus, and so many other sea creatures. The boys loved the aquarium area.

Our next day trip was to the Peanut Depot also located in downtown Birmingham. This was a very fun trip that only took a short time to do. BINGO! Just what we need for the kids. The Peanut Depot was located in a large old brick building on a brick road. The building itself is over 100 years ago and is listed in the Birmingham historical directory. They make all their own fresh roasted peanuts there and give tours of how peanuts are made. This was fun, I've never seen the process on roasting peanuts. We also ate our first ever Boiled Peanuts. Quite honestly, I've never even heard of boiled peanuts until last week. The tour wasn't really a *tour*. The building is basically 1 very large warehouse type room and all of the peanuts are actually roasted right there in that big room. The owner was there and he explained everything to us very well. Of course we left with quite a few bags of fresh roasted peanuts! YUMMY!

Our third and final day trip was to the Birmingham Zoo. Of course the kids loved the zoo. We saw many of our favorite animals such as the gorilla, the sea lion, tigers, lions, monkeys and many other creatures as well. This was Lauren's first trip to a zoo, and she had a great time seeing all the animals her 2 favorites were the zebra and the many giraffes.

All in all we had a great trip. It took us 12 hours 15 minutes to drive straight down there and only took us 11 1/2 hours coming home. The kids did awesome in the van both there and back. I couldn't have asked for my kids to be better behaved!