Birthday!

Townes and Wren turned 7! We celebrated a day a early with crepes for breakfast by Dave, alien/E.T.-themed decorations (thank you, Big Girls), and opening gifts. We spent the rest of the day doing homeschool and packing up to leave after our month in Atlanta.

Nutella is one of the six foods Townes willingly eats.

E.T theme!

The Build-a-Bears got some new clothes.

These two are just the best. They are best friends.

The morning of their birthday we packed up the van and headed to North Carolina. Everyone got to eat a 74-cent personal pecan pie from Walmart in the car for breakfast and they were thrilled. You can see below how much stuff we have when the van is fully packed. Way too much stuff.

The Greenville, SC Zoo was fantastic. Small enough to easily walk the entire thing in an hour, half price with our reciprocal pass, and all of the best animals. 

The red panda came out for a snack at exactly the right time for us to see it up close. 

Red pandas are the cutest.

The orangutan family was our most favorite. This photo was taken when the mom was sitting against the glass, the baby was doing his adorable swinging clown show, and the dad was making his rounds to show off his absolutely amazing fur that was like a foot long everywhere. It looked like he was wearing a costume made out of dreds. Best.orangutan.ever.

Twin pic!

Civil Rights, Burgers, Hike, Fire Station

The National Center for Civil and Human Rights was fantastic (and free with our reciprocal passes). It covered so many topics and I think gave our kids a better understanding of human rights (and the lack thereof in the world) in general.

While downtown we had to stop at The Varsity, the world’s largest drive-in and in business for 95 years.

We hiked to the top of Stone Mountain. It has a very checkered history (rebirth of the KKK for one) and we weren’t sure we wanted to support its existence. In the end we decided we would hike it to enjoy the uniqueness and beauty of it - but we intentionally parked for free outside of the park and did not see the Confederate monument side of the mountain. Stone Mountain is the world’s largest exposed granite outcrop and the entire trail is just a gigantic exposed boulder - like walking on sidewalk the entire time.

We got to see some super old and really cool fire trucks at the free Marietta GA fire station museum.

Mummies, Money, Mausoleum

The Michael C Carlos Museum on Emory Campus was super interesting (and free!). Lots of Greek and Egyptian exhibits. 

A real mummy!

The Monetary Museum (part of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta) taught us all about the history of money, how interest works, what happens to damaged money (I don’t remember the number but a LOT of it is shredded daily), what inflation is and how the Fed works to curb it, and how money is stored in the 12 Federal Reserve banks (I think there are only 2 west of the Mississippi!). We even got to see a $10,000 bill! I learned after I took the two photos below that we were not allowed to take photos inside the building. Luckily these were taken just outside the bathrooms before we entered the museum. These girls are serious about money.

After church one Sunday we drove through the Westview Cemetery. It is the largest cemetery in the southeast and has an enormous mausoleum near the back. It was built in the 1940’s and looks like a castle! The cemetery itself is beautiful with rolling hills and lots of trees.

Sometimes Margot likes to refuse to be in photos even though she really wants to be in them.

Sweetwater Creek State Park

Just a short drive from our Airbnb was the beautiful Sweetwater Creek State Park. (Fun fact: they filmed lots of movies and tv shows here like The Hunger Games and MacGyver!) 

The ruins of an old 5 story-tall mill and factory are here. It was built by slaves with handmade bricks and used before the Civil War to make textiles. During the war it was used to make supplies for the Confederate army and was burned down by the Union army when they arrived.

Random Atlanta Memories

Making valentines for everyone 

Townes with his new set of weapons that he has been wanting for months.

The Atlanta Temple

Twin love

Sister love

June and Wren made sweet doll heads out of play dough. (Did you know that Cabbage Patch Dolls are made in Georgia? I tried to convince my family to go to the factory/hospital where they are “born” from a mother cabbage tree - the reviews I read were so strange - but they wouldn’t do it.)

This is a sweet note to Mabel from a lady in the Atlanta Ward. 

That ward was most definitely my favorite part of being Atlanta.

Playing Dixit as a family in my birthday.