{Atlanta} The Muppets, the Braves, and the Photo Bombers

Steve had his STEP 2 CS test in Atlanta last week, and since he was planning to drive and get a hotel anyway, we decided to turn it into a mini family vacay. We left Thursday morning with a giant bag of snacks and a giant bag of toys at my feet and drove for several hours before stopping for lunch at Wendy's where the kids stretched their legs and an old lady warned us that someone might kidnap them. (What?! We wanted to ask if she was planning on it... But we respected our elders.) Why were they this happy to hop back in the car? 

Maybe because we were playing The Muppets on a loop on a car DVD player (best Santa gift ever--thanks Santa!). We forgot to return it after our Flagstaff trip, so Redbox charged us $25 for it. I'd have to say, for the number of times the kids have watched it (probably 5 times alone on just this trip--it is the only one Charlie cares about) it was worth it.

When we got to our suite (do you even have to ask where we stayed?) we were all exhausted and crashed on the bed in mom & dad's room to watch the Olympics. (Can you see Charlie in the background playing with the phone? We ended up disconnecting the one in the living room so the kids could play with it, and they were "on the phone" with Grandpa or Suzi/Abby/David for a good portion of the trip.)

We took the kids in the pool and drove around a ghetto part of town looking for food, finally came up with some Papa John's, and kept the kids up way too late eating pizza and watching more Olympics.

The next morning Steve got up early and we drove him to his test (which was basically like a pretend day of work--he had to be a pretend doctor and diagnose fake actor-patients for 7 hours and got graded on it). The kids and I spent the morning at "home" watching PBS and playing with the phone.

We ran to the grocery store to pick up some lunch-y foods, and I improvised plates for the kiddos (the little paper things that go on top of the cups) and since we had no knife I sliced their cheese with a coffee stirrer. A random but yummy lunch of cheese, rolls, turkey, and grapes.

Steve got home from his test around 3 and we went for a swim before heading out to dinner...

...followed by a Braves game! One of Steve's friends from back home gave us wonderful tickets, 7 rows back and right on first base! The kids had a GREAT time learning to do the Braves chop and amusing the people around us...

...and photo-bombing us. Charlie photo-bombed at every opportunity.

(And speaking of photo-bombs, check out the disapproving woman behind Charlie.)

And Gracie was not one to be left out of the trend...

And then there's Steve, who is his own photo bomb.

Also, can you find Waldo?!

What if I narrow the field... Can you see him now? He had pretty good seats. But I guess that's how it works when you're a celebrity.

We were (far too) amused that it was also Star Wars night! The home team had the Jedi lightsaber color (I know, I am a nerd that I know that) and photo-shopped outfits.

And the away team had the Sith (bad guy) color lightsabers and kept getting photoshopped into storm troopers.

Kind of got a family photo...

We made it a long time before the kids started literally asking to go home and go to bed. They were having fun but were SO tired. They got extra snuggly towards the end.

When it started to rain we decided to head back to the hotel, and by the time we were on the freeway it was torrential! We were actually a little scared driving on the freeway. But we made it back safe and dry, and you can bet the kids were even more exhausted the next day. :)