48 hours in Chattanooga

Perhaps your remember our Last Year's visit with friends and how we had an AMAZING time??

Well, we decided that it was so much fun that we had to do it again and this year we chose Chattanooga. We missed Jeannie and her awesome kids (Germany, anyone?)  but they live much further away this year since Jeannie is doing important things at Ole Miss. 

First stop: Discovery Museum.

In case you didn't realize it from his constantly worn-homeless looking fireman jacket, Max takes role playing very seriously and doctoring Reese was no exception. 

But, even taking care of his cousin cannot trump playing with water. You know these water hoses got a lot of attention from the firefighter himself. 

I am not sure if it was Max's large head size or his weak aim, but the attempt at learning about levers did not go very well. 

Anderson is more or less a teenager in most situations. He does have fun, but also will absolutely refuse to cooperate when all of the other kids are posing in the giant beehive. Well, all of the other kids except Reese who just lost her hive spot thanks to Max. 

Second stop: We hit up the hotel for swimming & pizza. It's been so long since our friendship began and, even though we do see each other that often, it is so great to still have these girls. 

I think Max went the entire weekend without resorting to grumpiness. 

He is in his element when he is eating pizza with bigger kids.

Since it was Eli's birthday, Skye planned a celebration for him and we totally benefitted from the festivities. 

To save money, Nicole & I split a hotel room that was actually way bigger than a normal one because it had a pull out couch, too. The boys & I snuggled it up in this comfy time....until I had to sneak away in the middle of the night and take half of Reese's bed because sometimes there can be too much comfiness. 

Also, for the second night, the boys & I moved into Skye's room. My boys and Nicole's girls could NOT get along. Mostly, it was Anderson & Lily. They love each other so fiercely, but they are 2 of a kind in every way-intense, competitive, protective of their siblings, unable to settle for less than the absolute best*-and they just cannot spend too much time together. #cousins

These 2 save our sanity every time. 

Day 2 brought more festivities. 

We visited the Chattanooga Zoo, which was super cute and just the right size for our visit. 

Perhaps most importantly, Anderson found a roadrunner! He was so, so excited to show me and I had to, of course, document the occasion. BeepBeep!

The zoo had roaming peacocks and they were for sure the hit of the time. 

My kids definitely did some stalking of them. 

We spent an entire weekend together and we got exactly one high quality picture with a few of the kids. 

Anderson was SO pumped when the peacocks started opening their feathers. He took at least 500 pictures on my phone, all complete with his finger on the side. 

Lunch with the cousins. 

Anderson is always in his happy place when he is around animals of any kind. 

Nicole is also in her happy place in settings like this. 

Noni sent them money to pick out goodies in the zoo gift shop, which was a huge win. 

One of the greatest things we did was hit up an AWESOME splash park-it was amazing and only $2/person!

Lily & Anderson dominated the obstacle course/water thing. This is definitely where their intensity/drive pays off. Most kids their age were falling off, but these 2 were in it to win it. 

This is a picture that I will use in August when he is complaining about school to remind him of his AWESOME summer. 

Just some boys having breakfast in a hotel room. Notice the Glover/Cossio/Glover/Cossio pattern. 

A snuggle moment with my favorite tornado. 

Because we are delusional, we took these guys to see "Finding Dory." I am not sure how/if/when she was found because we had to leave the theater to hang out in the lobby. I realized a character in "The Secret Life of Pets" is named Max and I quickly became obsessed. 

Also, Reese. I know. Cuteness overload. 

And, to end our trip, we splashed down these awesome and totally random water steps!

We had such a blast and cannot wait until next year!

Introducing Spots, the leopard gecko

Picture it: 

3 years ago. A small boy in green glasses and an eyepatch, a tiny baby and a frazzled Mama walk into a Petco to buy dog food. The 3 year old wants every.single.animal that he sees. Despite the Mama's constant reminders that he already has 2 dogs AND a baby brother, he wants more. 

"You are not old enough for any of these animals yet."

"How old do I have to be, Mama?" 

"I do not know, "says the distracted Mama as she searches for the cheapest dog food option. 

"Hi, pet store man, how old I do I have to be to have a lizard?"

"Hey buddy, I would say about 6.*" 

And, so began our adventure into life with a reptile aka Anderson's Happy Place. 

*Also, thank you pet store man for planning my future WITHOUT consulting me. I think the key word in this story has already been mentioned: man. 

Perhaps there are some kids who would have forgotten a passing conversation with a Petco employee, but definitely not Anderson. He has been saving his money in this Batman piggy bank since then and has been hard core asking about the lizard daily (minutely? secondly? are those words?) since he turned 6. 

We told him he had to save enough money to buy the cage. They are normally $70 but, luckily for this kid, they were on sale the day we happened to go and check them out!

Also, teaching this boy about sale prices might be my favorite thing. 

Too bad the original pet store man was not there when we paid so that he would have had to count out the baggies of nickels and pennies that was used as payment. 

We actually bought the cage a few weeks before the lizard because it was on sale. We were in there so often looking at them that a few employees came up to him and asked, "Have you saved enough yet?" It was pretty sweet and also borderline embarrassing because...maybe we went there a few times too many. 

The BIG day finally came and I thought Anderson was going to lose his mind from excitement. He knew exactly which one he wanted because of the stalking. 

Everyone loves my forced posing. 

We have been talking about this for so long and, for Anderson, taking the gecko home in this box was one of the things he has been looking forward to for awhile. Every time we went to Petco, he would look at the little boxes and talk about the whole process. 

He is in charge of helping to take care of it-feeding it mealworms and cleaning out his cage. 

I consider myself a pretty savvy Boy Mom. I have caught crawfish with Kroger bags, salamanders with my bare hands, all kinds of things in nets, touched every manner of insect and most creatures, but....standing in Petco, listening to the reptile lady tell me about this cricket feeding process, I felt a little sick. I didn't realize they were going to actually be ALIVE crickets that we have to coat in calcium powder first. And, they eat a lot. And, they poop out all of those calcium crickets. The whole thing was giving me the heebie jeebies.

Luckily, Brandon had no problems taking care of the cricket/calcium power shaking. 

And, here he is-Spots!

Pure happiness right here. 

Let's hope we can keep this guy alive, now. 

Celebrations: Father's Day, Toni's birthday, America

For Father's Day, Max's school had an ice cream celebration & we didn't miss it because we love some ice cream in the Glover household. 

Brandon was talking to someone he knew when I took this picture from the car. 

 I love, love when our kids answer questions about us. They are always so accurate. 

We are way more grateful for him than this card (that I possibly forgot to write Max's name on) suggests. He keeps us going, for sure. 

We were actually in Florida on the real day, so we celebrated Pops by buying him a dozen oysters (really, he only got 10 because I ate 2 of them.)

Also, we planned ahead and gave him a goody bag at the beach, full of random things like olives and a massage gift card. Aunt Manda came through on organizing that one for us. 

Another exciting celebration occurred when our GG celebrated her birthday! We went to eat Mexican food, which was so delicious after a week of seafood. 

Max was, per usual, incredibly willing to participate in pictures. Also, there was a brief yet terrifying few days where we thought the Fireman outfit was going to be replaced by this Army camo one. Luckily, I now know to hide things like this before they can become obsessions. 

Because true love is playing play doh with your grandkid at the dinner table.

I am now 0 for about 8 on trying to replicate Toni's cake. While I should be able to make it by following the recipe, some part of my ability fights it every time. I did make up for the not quite the right taste by serving it on a Presidents placemat, so I think winning was involved. 

All of my happiness can be traced back to GG, so I am incredibly grateful for her strong presence in our lives, her face that was passed on so many times and those blue eyes that I now see all around me every day. We love you, GG!!

Next up: AMERICA!!!!!

Max made this shirt at school and he was SO PROUD of himself. It was seriously precious how much he wanted to show it off. 

Farragut Independence Day Parade! Anderson was explaining to Max how the propellers make the helicopter fly. It was so precious and accurate. I love when they actually get along. 

The fire truck! Also, when it got to us, the firemen actually stopped and waved at their co-worker Max, who quickly became incredibly shy and hid in my shirt. But, it was still pretty awesome. 

Anderson is an intense kid, which is one of the many things I love about him. I have even realized the many strengths in this trait and started to use them to our advantage. 

We were at the very end of the parade route and the popsicle truck was really far down, so I sent Anderson down there with instructions to come back with 2. If you look closely, you can see him in the blue shirt toward the front of the truck. 

I thin nobody is surprised when I say that he got them popsicles. 

We spent most of the Fourth hanging at Noni & Bop's where we had a pretty awesome water balloon fight. Well, for Noni, it was more of a massacre....

And, we ended the night with fireworks with GG at her friend's house. I love this one of Brandon giving other small kids fire. It takes a village. 

I mean, my photo opportunities are amazing. 

Wow. They keep getting better. 

Max LOVED the fireworks. He was cackling the entire time that we were watching them and kept commenting on them. It was so, so funny. 

Good times.