Montgomery, Alabama

I finally made it to see my cousin Rachel and her family in Montgomery, Alabama. I flew standby early on Thursday morning. I was able to get on both the flight to Atlanta & the one to Montgomery and arrived before 9am. We ate at a local restaurant for breakfast called Wagon Wheel Too. It was great southern cooking. The grits didn't even need salt.

Ravyn has a class project to grow a huge cabbage. She had to water it every day.

We went on a shopping spree for the day out and about town.



Cody was saying "cheese" under the hat.




We ate lunch at Red Robin followed by indoor ice skating at the local mall. I hadn't been ice skating in many years. I forgot how sore my ankles get. After about 15 minutes, I called it quits & let Pat skate with Ravyn. The kids enjoyed the carousel, but neither chose a horse to ride.

Cody was too scared to try ice skating. Rachel cooked us some fabulous fish for dinner.

On Friday, we went to the local zoo.


We had to pay $2 per person to go see & feed the giraffes. I made sure to get several pictures of it since we had to pay extra.



The weather was perfect all weekend. We packed some sandwiches for lunch & made a day of the zoo. They had a great picnic area right next to a huge playground. We then ventured over to Bass Pro Shops.




I wanted the $33,000 boat. We relaxed on it & took some pictures.

But I refrained from buying it. I fixed some chicken fajitas for an early dinner & then went to watch Ravyn spar in her karate class. She's a green belt. When we got home, I made cake balls.


On Saturday, we drove an hour to Birmingham to visit the science center/children's museum. We packed sandwiches again & had a picnic in the lunch room at the science center & they got to sample some of my cake balls (strawberry flavor). The center was huge. We spent hours there and probably still missed some things.




I thought this restroom sign was funny (right next to the pork & beans can).



I also thought this out of order water fountain worked so well.


We got to pet sharks and sting rays there, too. For dinner, we ate at P.F. Chang's. Yum!!! I went to bed early Saturday night so I could wake up at 3:30am Sunday morning. Pat dropped me off at the airport at 4:30am to catch the 5:30am flight. I didn't get on the flight and they canceled the 7:30am flight. The 9:30 flight was already overbooked before they canceled the 7:30am one, so I had no option but to drive to Atlanta. Rachel was nice enough to pick me up at the airport at 6:30am and we drove to Atlanta. I was able to get on the 11:05am flight to GSP.

It was a great trip & we had a lot of fun each day. Here's a video of Ravyn sparring. She's in the green belt.