Choo Choo Chattanooga...Here we come!

The 4th of July holiday we took the clan to Chattanooga Tennessee. We heard that they have a great aquarium there and being the lovers of fish that we are, we decided it was time for a Marshall 'vacation' (an over-nighter in a hotel). Chattanooga is only 2 hours away so it was a decent little trip that our family could handle in the car. We really had fun! Thursday, the 3rd we went to the Tennessee Aquarium. They have 2 different buildings there; one with ocean fish and the other with river varieties. I think Ty's favorite were the sharks. He was going crazy yelling 'shark, shark' every time he saw one. They were swimming right up to the glass. One of them glided right past my face and couldn't have been more than 5 inches away, including the 3 inches of glass. YIKES! That night I took AHA (Alex, Hayden and Aubrey) swimming in the hotel pool where, of course, Aubrey makes a little friend who is almost twice her age and half her size. She does love people. The morning of the 4th we made our way back downtown to go to the Children's Discovery Museum. Unfortunately (and I'm still angry at myself for this) I left the camera in the car. It was really a great children's museum, probably the best one we've visited, except Boston, but Steve and I went there before we had any children so it is hard to compare. Steve and I joined in the fun playing with their water channels stream, the art room and on the kiddie stage (complete with costumes, lights and sound effects). I think the other parents there realized why we have so many kids -- we are still kids ourselves. Probably the most memorable part of the trip though (and the other activities were hard to beat) was the game that we played on the ride there and back. Steve used to play the 'ABC' game with his grandmother on trips to the desert, so we started with that one, but Steve is so dang fast at it, it is hardly fun to play (especially while I am driving and trying NOT to kill us) So Aubrey suggested let's do numbers! At first blush we were placating her but then we realized we could continue into double digits and beyond. The rules are you have to find the numbers in readable order but they can be separated by letters. Most times we found them on the side of big semis in their registration numbers or on billboards in telephone numbers. We often slowed down next to the semis to read the numbers. I'm sure they thought we were nuts! It was a BLAST! We even took a different exit home so that we could find 99 and 100 before we arrived at our house and as a bonus found 101! All-in-all an excellent adventure! (no telephone booth required)