Chattanooga Day 4 - Aquarium

We started Day 4 off with mass at the Minor Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul.  This picture, courtesy of google images, does not do it justice.  It was beautiful.  Although, in my humble opinion, not as beautiful as the cathedral in Savannah where we got married, but I might be biased.  Both churches remind you of God's glory and that's the point.  

The Minor Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, Chattanooga

For lunch, we ventured over to Tony's in the Art District (the art district quickly became one of my favorite parts of Chattanooga.  Highly recommend for the food and the view).

Tony's Pasta Shop & Trattoria - picture courtesy of google images

We spent most of the rest of the day exploring the Tennessee Aquarium and attended an IMAX movie.  Here a just a few of the awesome pictures Tim took.

Me and the crab were down - yo

Jelly fish

Sea horse

Nemo

And penguins of course!

Chattanooga Day 3 - Kayaking

We started Day 3 off with kayaking... for those of you who just panicked a little thinking I lost my mind kayaking while pregnant...I did a lot of research, and the car ride up there was bumpier than the river we were on.  There were no rapids.  

I had called around to a few places and finally landed on .... I'm not mentioning the company's name because I don't recommend using them, and I'm about to tell you a less than flattering story about them.  A lot of places were closed for Memorial Day weekend.  Long story coming, skip ahead if you just want to look at pictures.  Sorry, no pictures of kayaking, didn't figure it would be a good idea to bring our camera or iPhone to take pictures while in a kayak.

I got the impression that this kayaking business was "informal" while I was on the phone with Mr. Ray, the head of the operation.  He said just call and let them know an hour before we were headed out there and there would be a college student waiting for us.  

The craziness started before we got there...I misread the directions, and got us incredibly lost (have you seen the title of our blog yet?)...like an hour late lost...oh, but!  The kayaking place is 100 yards (literally) from the time zone change...so we actually arrived on time, in spite of being an hour late...you get it?  They didn't care either way.  

We drove past the place a couple times before we realized that they were working out of a shabby apartment complex office....with no signs anywhere to be found to help the people driving out into the middle of nowhere to find their operation.

Mr. Ray came out as we pulled up and directed us to drive down the little driveway where we ended up on a river front lawn with a college kid sitting behind a folding table with a few kayaks beside him.  Realizing that there was no one going with us (the places I've been before had guides, or at least a big enough operation where you could just follow other groups down the river to the end point), I tried to question the kid about how long the trip was, and what would be at the end as the indicator for us to pull out.  He mumbled something about a rope swing, and to call when we get there and they'll come get us.  Luckily Mr. Ray had waterproof bags for us to bring one of our phones with us.  They plopped us in the water and off we went.  We saw a rope swing but considering we had been on the river for about 5 minutes, I was pretty sure that wasn't the end.  

The river and surrounding mountains were beautiful.  It was so peaceful, just the two of us, and made us feel very small.  Again, sorry no pictures.  There were very few people out on boats.  Just about the time I was ready to be done, we saw a sandbar which a volleyball net (which Mr. Ray had mentioned to Tim), and pulled up there and gave them a call.  I heard mumbling about "be there in 3 hours" and I was going to lose it (pregnant + tired  exhausted + hungry = grumpy lady), but then I heard we'll see you in 15 minutes.  

Mr. Ray pulled up in a boat that I'd typically seen used for water skiing with a posse of two other men and a woman.  I was thinking they were coming in a vehicle on the road where we pulled out that would accommodate us and the kayaks.  We crammed into the front of the boat while they tied the kayaks to the back of the boat.  I was feeling kind of woozy at this point, having been out in the sun for a few hours and had gone through all of my snacks.  I just kept telling myself that it was only 15 or so minutes back.  Mr. Ray takes off with the kayaks flying behind the boat over the rapids and his posse yelling at him to take it easy cause I'm pregnant, and within 5 minutes, a kayak broke loose.  The force from the rapids yanked the handle clean out of the kayak.  So we turn around several times to catch the kayak, because Mr. Ray is not a patient man and instead of going by carefully the first time so they can grab the kayak, he blazes by it several times, with his friends trying to catch the darn thing.  They finally got it tied back on and we proceeded...

...for two more minutes...before the handle snapped off again...I was thinking "duh, what made you think it would hold this time".  And again after swinging around a few times they pulled the kayak onto the boat so that one of his poor friends looked like he was being crushed by the kayak in his seat.  Meanwhile, I stuck my shirt in the water and put it back on to try to keep cool, and was feeling incredibly sunburned at this point.  And on we went...until...

...SNAP!...the rope snapped and the other kayak was left behind...circle, circle, circle...grab kayak...take off... rope gets caught in the engine...several more minutes of them trying to get it out of the engine...take off again...guy almost falls out of the boat...kayak comes off again...now both kayaks have been pulled into the boat...oh wait...there is a piece of cushion from one of the kayaks that came out and is floating...circle, circle, circle around...grabbed cushion piece...Mr. Ray made some comment about the boat they usually bring to pick people up (so why didn't you bring THAT boat this time).  We finally made it back to shore, and scrambled off to find the hungry pregnant lady some food.

Thanks to the Urbanspoon app on my iPhone, we found Petunia's Silver Jalapeño.  The name alone makes you want to check it out doesn't it?

Petunia's Silver Jalapeño 

After some BBQ and fish tacos, we were much perkier and ventured into the little market next to the Silver Jalapeño. 

We bought some strawberries to munch on and chatted with some colorful locals.  

After some much need rest at the hotel, we headed back out for dinner and ended up at FoodWorks

Shrimp and Grits...yum

We ventured to the art district and walked around the outside of the Hunter Museum of 'Merican Art (the "A" was missing from the sign).  

Me in front of one of the bridges in Chattanooga

I don't know what he's doing but it made me laugh

This strip is in the art district and holds one of my favorite restaurants and coffee/dessert places we went to.

The cookie is almost as big as my hand

The cookie was a very good finish to a long but fun day.

Chattanooga Day 2 - Food and Music

Day two was a very low key day of bumming around Chattanooga and partaking of local cuisine.  We hit up "Fresh On Fridays" in downtown, which "highlights fresh made offerings from local restaurants, food trucks, artisans and farmers".  Despite the great food available, there was a line out the door at Subway...silly people.  We ended up with asian tacos and homemade soda. 

Food truck - picture courtesy of google images

There is lots of cool art sprinkled throughout Chattanooga.  

The only remaining part of the First Methodist Church building. 

30 weeks and resting by the church steeple while the Hubs plays with the camera.

The Chattanoogan hotel was featuring a low country boil dinner special for Memorial Day.  After eating Sprout's weight in crab legs we headed back to Market Street to see a free concert that is part of Chattanooga's Nightfall Concert Series.  We saw the band Elliott Brood, a bluegrass rock band from Toronto.

This was the best picture I could get.  We need a zoom lens.

I was playing with the camera and said "smile for me" and this was the face I got :)

We headed toward the baseball stadium with the promise of fireworks after the game, but when we got over there, the game was not close to being done and we were worn out.  No fireworks for us.  :(  But it was a great day of food and free stuff.  

Chattanooga Day 1 - Sir Goony's

We had been talking about trying to take a vacation ever since we skipped going away for our anniversary last year, and so we finally got our butts in gear to pull off a "babymoon".  So we woke up and headed to Ikea...  Ok, so Ikea was not our final destination, but what trip through Atlanta would be complete without stopping at Ikea?  After we scoped out lots of things we wanted and ate some swedish meatballs, we headed on to Chattanooga, Tennessee.  

On the way, we were discussing our families' traditional vacation activities when growing up, and I mentioned that I didn't remember any vacation where my family did not play mini-golf.  After a quick search, I found a mini-golf place 5 minutes off of our driving route, and this landed us at...

We both got hole-in-ones (actually I got two)

Then we embraced our inner child and played arcade games, and reminisced about how arcade games were not the same as when we were younger.  An oldie but a goodie is always air hockey, though.  I include this next picture because of the conversation that preceded it.  (I preface this, with the fact that there are few things at which I can beat Tim.)

Tim: "You ready for some air hockey?"
Me: "Yep!"
Tim:  "You ready to have your butt kicked?"
Me:  "Sure."
(My score is on the right...)

I did discover a new arcade game that was quite entertaining...

This game can be quite addicting, and very fun to play when you're not gambling with a million dollars.  However, we did kick butt and won a bunch of tickets that enabled us to acquire some fun loot for the nieces and nephews.  

We checked into our hotel and then headed out for dinner.  One of the best things we did while on vacation was sought out local restaurants.  We found a brochure/magazine in our hotel of restaurants, farmers markets, and other entities devoted to local production of goods and food.  We rarely deviated from using this to pick our restaurants and we were not disappointed.  Our first pick landed us at the Terminal Brewhouse.  The restaurant featured a very sassy menu (example below), amazing pub food, and one of the best root beer floats (made with home-brewed root beer) that I've ever had.

The Terminal Brewhouse

After dinner, we wandered over to check out the Chattanooga Choo Choo, a historic hotel with hotel rooms inside converted train cars.

And so ended Day 1 of our awesome vacation. :)

Popsicle Prayers

...with a preggar pic thrown in.

The hubs and I have been talking about having a family altar for a while.  What is a family altar you ask? Great question...one I had to ask as well.  A family altar is a place in your home that you deem as the center of your family prayer time and devotions.  There is a lot of information on the internet about the history of family altars and what items people include in their family altars.

A friend of ours wanted to get rid of a shelf, and I had a hard time turning it down, since it came at the bargain price of...free...and voila!, the humble beginnings of our family altar was born.

Surprisingly, this post is not about family altars.  It's about popsicle sticks....stick with me (ha! pun was unintended, but punny nonetheless!)  I'm always looking for ways to incorporate our faith into the little moments our day...so much easier to think about than to implement and execute...I'm working on that.  One of the girls in the Bible study I work with, came up with the idea (inspired by Pinterest I'm sure) to have a prayer jar with all of our names in it.  Each week we pick a stick with someone's name on it and pray for that person all week.  I was looking for a container that would serve this purpose in our home and while cooking came upon the perfect jar...or can rather.

 Sometimes I get caught up with wanting things to be perfect before implementing them...so many projects that I haven't done because I haven't figured out the perfect way to do it...rather than just going with the project and developing the idea in full as I go.  So this time, I went for the "it'll work for the mean time", undecorated aluminum can with the undecorated popsicle sticks, with all of our family's names written on them.  The popsicle sticks are supposed to be colored on one end (hence the sharpie-colored end of the sticks above) so that you go through all the sticks before repeating any of them, also ensuring that you get to everyone in the jar.

But the other day, it was pretty outside, and just cool enough (along with a little fan I rigged on one of the chairs) to sit outside and paint the popsicle sticks.  Tim had rigged a clothes line up to dry some clothes, and this worked as the perfect place to hang the popsicle sticks to dry.

 If you have an easier way to accomplish this, let me know.  I just decided I wanted a painted look rather than a colored-with-a-marker look.

Now, I did promise a preggar pic...

27 weeks

And for a close-up of Sprout :)

Sprout is in there smiling and waving...I'm sure of it.

Here was the final project, made with some modge podge and scrapbook paper.  Although, I have to work on my modge podge skills, because after a few moments, the paper crinkled :(  But it still looks cute... from a distance.