Family Weekend

Corey was off this weekend, the first weekend in about a month that he has had off and will be the only weekend for about another month that he will be off. "Off" for Corey means not being on call and not having any change windows scheduled. We had to take advantage of this time and get some good quality family time in. So we did. :-) Saturday morning we headed up to Nashville. Our first stop was McKay's Used Books. We brought 2 small/medium boxes with books, computer software and music cd's to turn in. If they buy them from you then you get $x in cash or $y in store credit. Store credit is close to double the cash amount. Since we LOVE books (and they have books, computer software, music, video games, movies,etc there) we take store credit. This trip we got $95 & change in store credit. Corey got 4-5 books, Morgan got 5 books, Alex got 9 books and I got 7 books; plus the kids each got a music cd - Alex got a Boston cd and Morgan got Imogen Heap. And we have plenty of store credit leftover for our next trip. Our second stop was the Adventure Science Center. We joined, homeschool family membership...woo! and then started wandering around. Alex wanted to come as part of his birthday so we let him decide what to do each step of the way. First, he wanted to try one or more of the NASA exhibits. He decided on the EVA Experience which simulates how astronauts do the extravehicular activities ("space walks") and is zero gravity.

Here we have Alex harnessed up and ready for the activity to start.

Here is Corey all harnessed up & ready to go.

Here is Alex up in the air.





Here is Corey up in the air.




And here is a shot of both of them (someone we don't know in the center) up in the air.

The line for the moonwalk experience (1/6 gravity) was really long so we decided we would put that off for another day now that we are members. Plus, the kids & I will be back on Wednesday for our last Homeschool Day of the year. Maybe he can try it then. After this we went through the other areas of the center and had a good time. Eventually hunger overtook us so we headed out for our next stop. We headed to Cool Springs (just south of Nashville) for a late lunch/early dinner and decided on Red Lobster. Afterwards, Corey wanted to stop in to Best Buy so we dropped Corey & Alex off there and Morgan & I walked over to Old Navy. We had picked out a few shirts for her (big sale) and were looking at some for Alex when the boys showed up...with an iPad. LOL! He wasn't planning on it but decided to get it since they had some and he REALLY wanted to get one. So we left with 3 shirts for each kid and 1 iPad. Leaving Cool Springs we headed into Spring Hill to visit my mom & brother. All was good there and we had a good little chat. Next stop, ice cream at Bruster's and then home. *phew* I think we were all tuckered out. We watched Cool Runnings with the kids.

On Sunday, we met up with my mom here in Columbia and all headed over to Tullahoma for the day. My BIL & SIL (Jon & Jody) were having everyone over for Easter. Corey, the kids & I, my mom, my other BIL, his wife & 1 son (of 3...other 2 couldn't make it) along with Jon & Jody's son & his gf, and their daughter. The kids colored eggs, then had an egg hunt with plastic treasure-filled eggs, then we had Easter dinner followed by yummy desserts. Afterwards we sat out on the front porch & in the front yard to enjoy the rest of the afternoon/evening. It was a gorgeous day!