Thanksgiving at the Sullivan's

Thank you Terri & Dan!
We had a delicious Thanksgiving in Atlanta!
These were the two best group pictures. Too bad I couldn't figure that self-timer out on the camera.

Georgia Aquarium...World's Largest Aquarium

We had a lot of fun at the Georgia Aquarium despite the large crowd there.

I really wanted to see the whale sharks. They were incredible to watch, and the aquarium had four of them. We started off at the ray touch tank, but it was very crowded and the kids could barely squeeze in to touch a ray. They didn't seem too upset by it.

I was fascinated by the beluga whales. I'd never seen them move under water before. I was taken back by how graceful they are under water.


We spent a lot of time in the world's largest underwater viewing theatre. There were so many fish to look at. Sydney, Reeve, and Kyle got to sit right up next to the glass and they had a grouper that was fascinated with them. That grouper stared directly at them and was motionless for over 5 minutes. I'd like to go back just to hang out in that room some more. It was very peaceful and didn't feel crowded.

MartaRail in Atlanta

We (Joyce, Grant, Chloe, Sydney, Tommy, Reeve, Kyle, and me) started our Atlanta vacation off by riding on Atlanta's MartaRail. The kids were pretty excited to board the rail system and travel into downtown Atlanta.

Grant wanted to make sure Kyle new NOT to go near the edge. We were constantly reminding the kids to stay away from the edge.

Can you see the pure joy in Kyle's face?
Later when we asked Reeve and Kyle what they liked best Reeve replied, "Seeing the rats on the tracks, riding underground, and riding the escalators." We saw a few large mice scurrying around on the tracks, but I don't think they were rats.
Jessica did a great job guiding us through the Marta Rail system and downtown Atlanta.

We walked right past the CNN building and arrived at the Georgia Aquarium right on time.

Winter Garden Prep

Before we left for our Thanksgiving trip (many pictures to post...hopefully soon) we set up some winter preparation for our garden. We still have delicious Red Russian Kale and some young spinach in the garden. I put straw mulch around the plants, but we really wanted to give them some extra protection in the hopes that we can still eat fresh greens after the snow falls.

It was pretty easy to make once we figured out how we were going to make it. We have a ton of old wire fence that we cut and shapped over the plants. Ideally we need to get some special garden row cover cloth, but we're using some clear plastic that we were going to use for the green house. The plastic didn't work for the green house because the wind ripped it to shreds... which could happen to the row cover, but we can repair if fairly easily. I hope :-). The plants seem happy under there.

This a picture of one of our 5 apple trees that were tortured by deer while we were in Georgia. The picture was take pre-deer mauling. Our next project will be to put up some electric fencing. They must have just jumped over the existing fence. They only do this when we're away. How do they know? Ugh!