Happy New Year!

I'm finally getting caught up on the last week.  We had a nice rest of our vacation.  Josh had to work last week, so I was by myself with the boys on Monday and Tuesday.  On Monday Zachary had a playdate with a neighbor boy, and then we were invited to stay for dinner.  On Tuesday we spontaneously took off for the movie theater to go see Tangled.  I bribed the boys with a trip to Build-A-Bear if they were good for me at the movie.  They were good, so after the movie, we went to Build-A-Bear.  Then Josh's parents arrived on Wednesday.  We all went to dinner at Benihana and then came home for Christmas part 2 with Josh's parents.

On Thursday since Josh was working from home, I figured it would be best if the rest of us got out of the house.  So his mom & I took the boys to Chattanooga for the Creative Discovery Museum again.  They played for a little bit and then we had a late lunch at Sticky Fingers.  We needed to get on back because Josh & I had a reservation for dinner at Bistro Niko.  I had gotten a gift card from my department manager back in October, for being the United Way coordinator for last year,  So we finally got to cash it in for a date night.  If you haven't been to Bistro Niko yet, I would highly recommend it - it was YUMMY!

On Friday Josh went to work again and got home just in time for the bowl game.  Yuck.  After dinner he & I headed to some friends' house for their annual New Years Eve party.  They moved to a larger house this year, so this was the first party in the new house.  We had a good time, and stayed until midnight, for probably the first time ever.

We got caught up on more movies over the weekend.  My mom babysat on Saturday so Josh & I could go see the 3rd Narnia movie, and then we took the boys to see Yogi Bear on Sunday.  Thumbs up for Narnia.  Thumbs down for Yogi Bear (or, "yoga bear" as Liam called him).  It was really not good.  But they thought it was very funny, so I guess it was worth it?

Yesterday was our last family vacation day together.  We loaded into the car & drove east to Stone Mountain.  I had been wanting to go to Snow Mountain, so we decided to do it.  It was so much fun!  They have a couple of tubing slopes as well as a snow play area.  I was a little annoyed though because I had called before buying the tickets and was told that Liam did not need a ticket since he's under 3, even if he is 36" and able to ride the family tube ride.  So we did not buy him one.  But when we got there, we were basically forced to buy him a ticket, since he was over 36" tall.  They ended up giving us the member rate (rather than making us pay full price) but I was still annoyed.  Josh had mentioned it to someone working inside who said it was his impression that Liam didn't need a ticket either, so he suggested we go to Guest Services.  We stopped in there on our way out.  Basically they couldn't do anything - they said that if he was tall enough for the ride, he did need a paid ticket (which is definitely NOT what the lady told me on the phone), but had no explanation for the little boy we saw with the handmade (aka, free) ticket getting off the family tube ride.  I asked why different people were getting different treatment, and as a consolation, she gave me 3 free passes to come back any time in 2011.  I was fine with that - that's probably worth more than the ticket we had to buy for Liam yesterday, and we had talked about maybe trying to do the laser show sometime this year.  So at least we got something out of it.

I was supposed to be back at work today, but due to a cough that has kept me up the past 2 nights, I decided to stay home & get in to see the doctor.  I'll head back tomorrow, as will Josh & the boys.  I'm sad that our vacation is over, but I think it will be good for the boys to be back in their normal routine.  I'm also somewhat looking forward to things slowing down a bit.  December (and really the whole fall) was so hectic, and as of right now we don't have much on the calendar for now.  I know it will pick up, especially once baseball starts, but for now we will enjoy taking it easy.

And one video to leave you with.  Liam has come home with lots of new songs from school.  He started singing this one last week, and Ihad to record it, it's just so cute!  I can't believe he knows all of the continents and he's not even 3 yet!