Chattanooga :: day one

i am WELL aware that many-many-many of you do not visit this blog in order to see ump-teen photos of my family. i’m even gonna guess that a large majority of you don’t care a lick about where we’ve been or what we’ve been doing. if you are like me, then often times you subscribe to a specific blog cause you are in the market for cool crafts and recipes and party ideas. i get it. i’m with you. i don’t blame you one bit for taking me off your blog-reading lists

problem is, it seems as if our summer hasn’t really lent itself to crafts and new recipes! with school just around the corner…(insert really really really sad face with tears…i do SO dread sending the crazies off to school all day…even though they do drive me crazy at times…actually…a large majority of the time…i still just LOVE having them around…doesn’t make sense, i know!)

anyway…i’m hopeful…really hopeful…that the fall is going to bring more time for those kinds of things. but if you are still hanging in there with me, then maybe you can not think of this post or the next few as our boring life that you don’t really care about and maybe just view them as some kind of travel review…as in, i tell you cool things we got to experience on our trip so that you can consider maybe experiencing them for yourself one day!

cause the true reality is that one side purpose of this blog is for me to document life. so i can’t leave out these kinds of things!

but hang in there…you just might like what you see!

the second leg of our Tennessee tour was to hit up Chattanooga. we have really cool friends who live up on the top of Lookout Mountain…in a little town, literally called Fairyland, and trust me….it really is like living in a storybook. we hit up as much as the town had to offer (within our budget and time constraints) and it did not disappoint one stinkin’ bit!! if you are looking for a place to visit, especially with kids, GO TO CHATTANOOGA!!

okay….there’s my plug. and here’s why:

for starters, they’ve got an awesome ice cream shop called Clumpies, that of course was one of our first stops quickly upon arriving:

we rested up that night with full bellies and headed out the next day for a full day in the city:
we started off at the Tennessee Aquarium, which is one of the best in the nation, might i add. there were a plethora of creatures to enjoy up close:
and lots of places to interact with the animals:
the top floor is a butterfly garden, filled with multiple types of butterflies that you hunt around for using your handy dandy butterfly “map”, which the kids thought was a pretty awesome new take on the old fave of “I Spy”
we were very pleasantly surprised to find that the butterflies were in fact friendly:
and took quite the liking to our own little bug:
but didn’t think that the boy was all that shabby either!
bella will tell you if you ask her that the butterfly garden was her favorite part of our trip:

we headed over to the penguins, and we all got quick the kick out of them and how they seemed to come right up and want to talk to you!
the crazies made some friends:
before heading to the big tank to see our favorite kind of creature…you guessed it: SHARKS!

my little actor and actress:
i know where they get their convincing skills
this place is magnificent…truly!

love that i happened to catch Bug’s reaction to the big ol’ fat snake:
i LOVE this picture…she was giving the fish kisses:
the city has built these awesome places for kids to swim and play in the water all around downtown Chattanooga. good thing, too, cause we were caught right in the middle of the heat wave and needed to cool off!

downtown Chatt. claims that this is the longest pedestrian bridge in the world!

so we decided that we just had to take a stroll across:

and on the other side we found an awesome park with a carousel. our options were not limited to just riding horses either! i snagged a donkey and belle snagged a beautiful fish named Bob!

after a full day in the city, the kids still managed to show each other some love when we found this graffiti down an alley:

we rode back up the mountain, only to discover the most wonderful site to our Floridian eyes!!!!

we don’t have the pleasure of fireflies here down south at the beach. since you haven’t officially experienced childhood without catching fireflies, we didn’t have to think twice about using that opportunity to cross that rite of passage off our list!

the perfect way to end a great day!

if you can believe it, that was only our first day! more to come!