Sweet Home Alabama ~ Day One

Sorry it's taken me so long to post about our trip to see Jen, Jeremy and the puppers. We got home late but safe and sound on Sunday night and I really needed a day to recover. We had a great time. Jen & Jeremy look great and are doing really well. The puppies are just adorable and so much fun. Julianne was in puppy heaven and Nathaniel got lots of outdoor time and didn't ask for his game boy once. To me, that's a successful trip. I think I took over 140 pictures and I won't bore you with all of them, though if you want to browse through them you can see them here.
We made great time getting there. We ended up leaving here (after a few "just let me's") about 4:00 once we packed up, gassed up and got on the road. It's a relatively strait forward drive and while I was nervous about driving through Atlanta (I've never been and have heard horror stories) it was not a problem at all. Nathaniel and Julz enjoyed seeing the city lights at night. My eye started getting sore and blurry but not so bad that I couldn't see and we arrived just fine about midnight their time.

Friday Jen and Jeremy had a quick class in the morning and about 11:00 we headed out. Our first stop was their favorite Mexican restaurant which was delicious. Our next stop, White Oak Winery, was just as delicious. Jen and I tasted some wonderful wines (so good I had to take a couple of bottles home with me) and Nathaniel sampled their grape juice. Here is the gang "listening" to the wine. 

Our next stop was the lookout at Longleaf National Wildlife Preserve. The trip up to the lookout was a very rocky dirt road but thanks to my son in laws wonderful driving we made it up in one piece. The kids loved wandering around ~ Julz picking up the fall leaves of red, orange and gold ~ Nathaniel picking up the largest sticks he could find and declaring himself "king of the hill" 

Of course the view from the lookout was spectacular 

Our next stop was the Anniston Museum of Natural History where we met "A T. Rex Named Sue"  They had a great wild life display and this one in particular made me feel right at home 
On the way home Jeremy found us a little mom and pop restaurant where we all ordered dessert. Jeremy and I got blackberry cheesecake which was good but too many seeds. Our favorite by far was Jen's Peanut Butter Pie. Now to get the true effect of this it must be said in a very deep southern accent and said as a question "Peanut Butta Pie?"

The balance of the day was spent in Jen & Jeremy's amazing "back yard" playing foot ball and Frisbee with the dogs. We were out there for hours because the dogs are just too funny.
The day ended with Jen making us some wonderful lasagna spinach rolls. All in all we had a great day and the kids were asleep within seconds of their heads hitting the pillows. I will post day two soon but in the meantime, How was your day?