Cow Day

If you've read my blog for any amount of time, you know that the Jacksons love free food! Chick-fil-A and Bruster's are two of our favorite places to get it! So of course we participated in the recent Cow Appreciation Day at CFA.

It was such fun to see the restaurant filled with fellow cows grazing on their nuggets and fries! A family from our neighborhood was there with all 3 kiddos in full attire! Unfortunately, Brice couldn't eat with us - he had class that night. But he wasn't going to miss out on the opportunity. He still dressed up and grabbed his free meal through the drive through on his way to school!

Long live the cow!

The Big 4-0 for Big Bro

This summer my brother turned 40. That's even weird to type! Fortunately, my brother is 8 years older than me so I have a little ways to go! :-)

When he arrived from China, we were all shocked to see a yellow/orange head of hair! This was his attempt to outdo anything we were planning for him. He's a one-upper, if you know what I mean. Thankfully, his mid-life crisis display will grown out and be just a memory. But we do have plenty of photos to make sure we never forget!

My mom's brother and his family came up from Florida for the festivities as well as her cousin and his wife who live locally. I didn't know my parents house could hold that many people, much less get them all around a table to eat!

Mom had an Andy-centered bingo game for the kids, Brice and I did an 80's pop culture Jeopardy game, and Becky collected messages from people in Andy's past. Good times.

And in true Cheely fashion, a t-shirt was involved! Three cheers for my clever sister!

It's a puzzle - can you figure it out? (The top right picture on the gals is a knot.)

Family Fun

If you read my sister's blog, then sorry for the duplication.

I mentioned before that we had my whole family together for a week this summer. It was a crazy week buts lots of fun! Of course, we had to get a family photo since these occasions are few and far between - and people keep having kids!

You'll notice that each family unit is wearing the same color t-shirt. That is to help onlookers be able to identify which kids go with which adults and which adults belong together. Yes, we Cheelys have a thing about t-shirts (see my next post).

Enjoy!

Men's Night Out

We had lots of extended family (on my side) come in town in the month of June. It's been over 2 years since we've all been together, and the first time Becky's youngest has been a part of the reunion! I'll have more pictures on that special time later.

One night, all the men went out to watch a baseball game - for that's what men do, right? We ladies stayed home with the youngest children and chatted over peach tea. (Please read that sentence with an old-South accent) Half-way through the night, my Aunt gets a text telling mom to check her e-mail. This is what we saw:

Yep, that's my two boys on the field playing one of the between-innings games. Here's a better look:

Brice is throwing inflatable rings over a cone on Cole's head! They didn't win but got some cool t-shirts for playing. They also came home with a couple of baseballs hit into the stands.

Male bonding at its best!

Hotlanta!

Family Summer Vacation, June 18-21, 2009

This summer, we spent four days in Atlanta, GA for our family trip. Man, was it hot!! We still had a great time though! The three of us travel very well together. We're all pretty flexible, as long as I have some sort of idea of a semi-plan. :-)

Thursday morning we left early to make a 10:00 am tour of the CNN Center. I had been with my family as a kid and remembered thinking it was pretty cool. One of the great things about Cole is his desire to learn. He wants to understand how things work. So once we started exploring how the news gets produced, he was hooked! Loved every bit of it! Plus he got to ride a really cool escalator into a globe . . .

After the CNN tour, we headed across the street to Olympic Park for a picnic lunch. They have live music in the summer on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the park's amphitheater. We ate our sandwiches and threw the frisbee while the band played and kids danced in the fountains. It just felt good.


After lunch, we walked to the other end of the park to the World of Coca-Cola museum. Such a cool place! I remembered this too from when I was a kid. But back then, the building was by Underground and it had this really cool tasting room where a machine would shoot Coke in a perfect arch into your cup. Not anymore. Now the tasting room has 5 drink stations with various types of sodas from different regions of the world!

Tasting Room

After Coke, we walked through Underground - not much to see there. However, they do have a Rita's. I first heard about Rita's when I visited my friend Marci back when she lived in Maryland. They raved about Rita's and took me to get my first Gelati - combo of Italian Ice and Frozen Custard. Mmmm! Rumor has it we're getting a couple in Birmingham this summer!

So, we ate at Johnny Rocket's, got some Gelati at Rita's, took a photo on the brick train outside, prayed with a homeless man, then headed north to our hotel.



After an evening of swimming, we put Cole to bed. Now, when we travel and stay in a hotel, Brice and I put Cole to bed and then go down to the hotel lobby while he's falling asleep. There, in the midst of the tables and chairs, you will find us in fierce competition. Phase 10 is a trip favorite but this year we had Super Racko too! It was brutal. Chairs were flying, juice was spilled, tables were broken - ok, not really, but it was nightly competitive fun!

Friday we slept in then headed to Stone Mountain. The biggest hit there - the Sky Hike! It's a three-level ropes adventure course. There are several sections for you to cross, safely harnessed and attached to the top railing, of course! Cole started out nervous, but as soon as he got out there, he wanted to do it all!





We also decided to Ride the Ducks! We took a tour of the park in an old land/water military vehicle. We went out on the lake where the kids on the "boat" could drive a little bit. Capt. Bill was lots of fun! Everyone was given quackers which made remarkably real duck sounds. I'm betting most of them disappeared before families made it to the car for their journies home!

We had a lot of fun in the park - watching the 4D Journey to the Center of the Earth, playing mini golf, watching a glassblower, walking the ropes again. And of course, watching the Lasershow Spectacular! Here's Cole with the Campfire Stories storyteller (he was great) and a worker named Andrew!

Saturday we drove up to Dawsonville to the Kangaroo Conservation Center. SO FUN! It is the largest kangaroo collection outside of Australia. Located on 87 acres, there are hundreds of kangaroos, some wallabies, and various Aussie species of birds and lizards. We took a tour through the park and the kangaroos would just stop and stare at us. It was HOT so they mostly hung out under trees. And we saw a few joeys popping out of their pouch! Beautiful place!

There was a boomerang demonstration and "lesson" where everyone could try a throw.

And they have a "pet" deer! I've never pet a deer before! It was really cool. She wasn't scared of us at all. And if you look closely at her tummy, you can see that she's pregnant!

That Sunday was Father's Day so Dad got to make the choices that day. We were planning to play some mini-golf before hitting the road, but it was so jokin' hot that Brice called it off - and we were ok with that! We ate lunch at the same restaurant where we'd had dinner the night before: Max & Erma's. Dads ate free! And as seen below, the Jackson competitive spirit is being passed down to the next generation - they are in a heated dot-to-dot game.

Recap: fun trip, it was hot, good times, it was hot, made some memories, and it was hot!