Piedmont Park

 We didn't do much for fall break this year.  We were planning on going to Six Flags on Friday, but it ended up being closed.  Instead, we went and picked up dad from work, got treats from Trader Joe's and then headed to Atlanta to Piedmont Park.  

 We've wanted to go here for a while, but just never have done it.  For some reason we don't go to Atlanta too much (traffic reasons mostly, it's crazy).  It was so much fun to be here on a cool evening.  It's been so hot up until now and we are loving how cool it is.  The boys were thrilled to play kick ball. 

 McKay ran the bases backwards.  

 Josh is such a fun dad and always plays with the boys (I am not as fun, but at least I document it!)

 After kick ball we went in search of some cool street art.  Atlanta has what are called "Living Walls" and they are so neat.  Atlanta artists have painted murals on them.  These cacti were pretty cool.

 Piedmont Park was so beautiful.  It was right on the side of the city and reminded us a little bit of Central Park in New York.

 I love the mural that we found, the abstract hot air balloons were so cute!

 This mural was across from the first one.  I wished that we could have seen more, but it was busy and crazy and we weren't wearing shoes to walk too far.

We ended the night playing soccer and then headed to the Flying Biscuit for dinner (amazing french toast), where McKay gave a dance show to everyone around having a ball dancing in the huge open windows.  He's a nut.  We had a good time and the boys even forgave me not getting them to Six Flags. 

Louisiana Swamp Tour

 I have the longest bucket list.  I was pretty excited to go down to Louisiana since one of the items on my bucket list was to take a swamp tour.  We had a long drive back to Georgia, so we had to do our swamp tour first thing in the morning.  When we go to the swamp tour we saw this raccoon eating what looked like was once a carved alligator.  The boys were thrilled to see it (we actually see them regularly squished on the road here...it's a problem).

 Watching the raccoon play in a tree.

 Our guide was so good.  He had all sorts of information about the swamp and alligators.  He did a good job.

 It was pouring rain on our tour and it couldn't have been any more perfect.  It was truly so beautiful with the rain and the mist and birds flying around.

 It was so freaky to see our first alligator.  Our guide told us that they don't always see very many of them and we saw a ton of them!

 It was crazy to see them go after the fish that the guide held out.

 This was probably my favorite part of the whole tour.

 Honestly so cool!

 This picture just makes me laugh, like he's say to the guide to get him something else to eat.

 So so pretty.

 Checking out some leeches...gross.

 An old graveyard that is in the swamp.

 I don't anyone was currently living here, but I have heard that people actually do live in the swamp and we saw someone's house on a boat that the definitely lived in.  It even had a garden attached.

 Crayfish.

 The guide would throw marshmallows to get the alligators to come closer.  The loved them.

 The guide had a gator that everyone could hold.  Luckily he taped the mouth shut...

 Seriously this tour was one of my favorite things we have ever done as a family!

Baton Rouge, Louisiana Day 2

 While the older boys and dad were working on the Methodist church, McKay, Hunter and I went to check out all of the parks in Gonzales.  It was so fun to explore Louisiana.  

 We found quite a few fun parks!

 I really love exploring new places, it's so fun to see all of the different states that make up the United States.  

 After exploring the parks, we picked up Josh and the older boys and took them home to clean up.  We then headed to New Orleans.  I had done a lot of research to see if the french quarter was okay to take kids to during the day.  Everything said it was fine.  Well...it wasn't just driving through we saw so many horrible things that the boys had to avert their eyes and we got out of there quick.  We tried and tried to find a restaurant to go to, but for one reason or another everything didn't work out.  We ended up heading to P.F. Chang, which isn't super Louisiana-ish, but our boys had never been there, so it was still a fun new experience.

 Chopsticks are still a bit challenging for our boys, but they tried.

 They also weren't huge fans of the food and we got WAY too much.

 Palmer ordered lo mein which he and McKay shared and they actually ate it all and loved it.

 Chopsticks...a little tricky.

 Got it!

McKay is always super entertaining where ever we go.

Our experiences at restaurants always end up like this...