Weekend Wrap Up

My mom & I planned earlier in the year to take Miles to Chattanooga to the aquarium & to spend the night in a train car at the Choo Choo Hotel.  Darrin's team was scheduled to play in a preseason tournament at UT Chattanooga so we coordinated our trip with his tournament.  My nephew lives in Chattanooga, and my brother, Dave, his wife, Emily, and my niece, Sarah, all spent the weekend with him.  Darrin's mom spent the last two week with Darrin's brother in South Carolina and they met Darrin's dad in Chattanooga this weekend to bring her back.  It's crazy how we all ended up in Chattanooga for somewhat unrelated visits.  Probably not interesting to anyone but me but nonetheless it explains the pictures.

I had doctor's appointments on Friday in middle Tennessee with my Lyme doctor.  I'll try to blog about that later in the week.  After I finished my visits around 3:30pm, we got on the road.  They are an hour ahead so we didn't arrive until around 7pm.  The first thing we did was check in the hotel and go see our train car.

The Choo Choo Hotel has regular rooms and train car rooms.  I thought the train car would be a neat experience and a good memory for Miles.

 

He loved it and didn't want to leave the room that night for dinner or the next day for anything.  He kept saying, "I don't want to leave this place."

My mom & I, on the other hand, were more than ready to leave.  It wasn't terrible, but it just wasn't what I'm used to staying in.  The decor was appropriate for a train car, but seemed old and therefore not as clean as a Hampton let's say.  

No regrets b/c Miles loved it so much...

After we checked out our digs, we grabbed dinner and met up with Dave, Emily, Caleb & Sarah...

We walked to a yummy ice cream shop...

Caleb & Uncle Dave had the fun task of swinging Miles on the way there...

Saturday morning, we went to watch Darrin's team play UT Knoxville.  It was the only game they lost all weekend but they still played well. Miles got to hang out with Granny & Pa...

....and his cousin, Jayci.  They don't get to see each other much, but they always seem to pick up where they left off.  

After the game, we went to the aquarium.  I was a little bummed about having to miss Darrin's game, but it was all worth it when I saw how excited Miles was to walk around the aquarium.

You could pet the stingrays.  Miles acted brave, but when they would come close, he always jerked his hand out.

The penguins were one of his favorite parts. How could you not love the penguins??

Everyone obliged when I suggested that we act scared in the shark tank.  I used the self timer and a lady had to stop and watch so she didn't walk in front of our camera.  She actually doubled over laughing at us.  Not bad for one take with a self timer...

A scuba diver came to the bottom and interacted with Miles through the glass.  Very neat...

We enjoyed the salt water building a lot but the fresh water building wasn't quite as impressive.  We made our way through it quickly.....and Darrin's game was delayed an hour.  Awesome.  When I was sure everyone was satisfied with their aquarium experience, we got the heck out of there and back to the gym in time to see most of the match.   

Miles is having his tonsils & adenoids removed in the morning and he is not a happy camper.  I let him pick out a stuffed animal at the aquarium gift shop to take with him tomorrow.  He named it Little Penguin McClure.  Here's hoping Little Penguin McClure helps settle his nerves tomorrow.