Greetings from Huntsville, AL!

So we began our trip by landing in Nashville, TN. So that was the first time that I have ever been in Tennessee. We will have visited 3 new states (for me) before the week is over. We had a great meal in a converted jail called Monell's. The Southern food was delicious with my favorite (and Hannah's!) being the fried chicken. It was a family style restaurant where the food was all you can eat for about $16/person. Now that was a deal! So far, so good!

Our first day in Alabama, we just got settled and talked and hung out. It was to relax after the long travel day since we had a 4 hour flight and then a 2 hour drive to Madison (just outside of Huntsville.) On Sunday, we went to church and then had lunch at a deli. We got to play with the kids outside in the Nemo wading pool and had BBQ shrimp and veggies on the grill. Our goal was to balance the BBQ dinners with a "healthy dinner."

On Monday, we woke up bright and early since Hannah and Timothy wanted to play. They don't understand why we didn't want to wake up before 8:30AM (read 6:30PST) so that we could play. We went to the local mall so that I could get my haircut and then shop a little. We also went to check out one of my favorite stores that are not in CA- Hobby Lobby for yarn. I am not sure when I am going to start knitting again, but maybe someday I'll get inspired by all the pretty yarn I'm collecting! I should ask Amy for some ideas on quick and easy patterns. Then, we went to a BBQ place for dinner that was quite good. However, the heat is definitely affecting my appetite. I'm eating much less now because I just don't feel that hungry, so I guess that's good considering I could be eating a lot of fatty BBQ! When we got home, we watched Pursuit of Happyness. Now I know that some of you may be thinking, "Didn't you see that like 2 months ago?" Bravo- good memory. I did say that, but we still have it from Netflix and so we brought it so Laura, Alex, and Edwin got to watch it. What can I say- Netflix loves us.

On Tuesday, Hannah had preschool so we got to sleep in. She gets out at 11:30AM. YES!!! Edwin used the leftover BBQ and grilled veggies to make pasta for lunch and then I made a pasta salad and Edwin made BBQ sandwiches for dinner because we were going to picnic while Alex played ultimate frisbee. I'll post the pics when we get them. It was funny because there was another dad there who had a 1-year-old daughter and he left her with us so that he could play. She was really cute too. If you ever want to get mauled by a group of toddlers, they really like cheerios, sliced grapes, and those puffy snacks. These kids were stepping all over us to try and get to these snacks. It's like they never get fed or something. Mob mentality starts young. When we got home, we played a couple of new games. Laura and Alex introduced us to Blokus while we introduced them to Apples to Apples.

Today, we met up with Alex during his lunch hour and we took the kids to a kids museum called EarlyWorks. We had so much fun that we all went home and took naps. Not long after, Alex came home and then we went to dinner at Cheeburger, Cheeburger which was a guess-what cheeseburger restaurant. Very filling and tasty, but I was surprised that they wouldn't make any of the burgers medium rare. They would only do medium. They also had quite the milkshake selection. We came home for some more Apples to Apples and laundry. Gotta love that we can just do laundry in the house! Here's a fun pic of bathtime with Hannah and Timothy. As you can see, it's an action shot!

We also got a chance to visit the Memphis zoo before our flight to Raleigh/Durham. Here's a few of us in the play area for kids.

I forgot to mention that we ended up looking at some houses on Friday before we left for our vacation. There was a cute little place on the same street of the house we have been considering putting a bid on. Though we loved the house, the timing was not right. I think if we were home, we would have made a bid on this place because it was in our price range and in move-in condition. The house had just come on the market on Wednesday. When we went to visit the house, we found out there there were 2 more houses on the same street that were going to be sold as well. This bodes well for us in that there seems to be some competition and the house that we were originally interested in has already lowered their price. To our dismay, however, this new house is already sold. It was on the market for less than a week and they received 3 bids and the realtor believes it sold for over asking. Oh well, I guess it wasn't meant to be. When we return on Sunday, we will try and see the other 2 properties that came on the market this weekend.