The second half of December was filled with family time, travel, and fun. We enjoyed Travis being off work for several days in a row leading up to Christmas. It is definitely one of my favorite times of the year!
It is so fun to watch the girls play together (when they play nicely…haha). I love how they are becoming little buddies…chasing each other around the house and playing with toys. Just the other day, they were in Brooklyn’s room sitting side by side looking at books, and Brooklyn was “reading” to Savannah. It was a sweet moment! In the picture above, I caught Savannah pretending to cut Brooklyn’s hair with some pliers from the Mickey Mouse tool set…haha.
I’m just glad they weren’t real scissors! :)
Savannah is usually very willing to share food with Brooklyn. Sometimes, Brooklyn takes advantage of this and gets extra snacks…she wasn’t born yesterday, you know! ;) One day, they decided it would be fun for Savannah to feed Brooklyn with her spoon!
I worked a 12 hour shift on Tuesday, December 20th and was happy to see my girls when I got home!
We attempted more pictures in front of the Christmas tree on Wednesday the 21st before Bible class…
Some of them were better than others ;)
Slightly blurry, but cute! Love my girls!
December 2015 vs. December 2016: Sniff sniff…they are growing up!
Livia is a couple of months older than Savannah, and they were being so sweet that night after church…following each other around and giving hugs. I hope they’ll be good friends in another year or two!
Thursday, December 22nd was our 9th anniversary. Hard to believe! We booked a little overnight getaway at a bed and breakfast in Georgia to celebrate. We usually don’t do much on the actual day of our anniversary to celebrate since it’s so close to Christmas, but this year our plans worked out perfectly. Since we were traveling to Trussville anyway for Christmas, we were able to drive down on the 22nd, drop the girls off at my parents’ house, and leave for our little getaway. It was just what we needed and something we’d been looking forward to for several months!
The bed and breakfast that we booked was the Twelve Oaks in Covington, GA. Covington is a small town on the east side of Atlanta, so it was just a few hours from Birmingham (it took a little longer to get there than we thought due to bad traffic, but it still wasn’t too bad). It was one of the top rated bed and breakfasts I could find within driving distance, so that’s why we chose it. It didn’t disappoint!
Here’s a picture of the room we stayed in…it was gorgeous and beautifully decorated for Christmas. I loved the claw foot tub!
This was the third bed and breakfast we’ve stayed at, and they’ve all been different. The Twelve Oaks was much more “antiquey” than the others…obviously, since it’s an antebellum mansion. It’s not our favorite style (we prefer more of a homey lodge type feel), but it was still beautiful and a great experience.
The room had its own working fireplace too! They had garland over the mantle and stockings hung for Christmas (these are all photos I found online because mine didn’t turn out very great).
The coolest part of the room was the ribcage shower. We’d never heard of a ribcage shower before, but it had a normal showerhead at the top and then little jets that spray out all around you from the metal bars. Here’s a description from their website:
“Have a once in a lifetime experience in this suite with a very rare antique luxury shower from the late 1800’s that was featured on Good Day Atlanta and in Deep South Magazine. These rare showers were once found in places such as Buckingham Palace. The ribcage shower can be viewed at Biltmore Estate, but Twelve Oaks is one of the very few places in the world where you can take a shower in one!”
Our room even came with this antique key! There was a hefty fee if you lost it (I’m sure that kind of key is expensive to replace), so we made sure to keep track of it :)
After we checked into our room, we unloaded our bags and walked to the downtown square. It probably took us less than 5 minutes to walk there; the proximity to the square was one of the neatest parts about staying at the Twelve Oaks. My pictures didn’t turn out great, but it was a really cute area with a bunch of shops and restaurants. Everything was decorated for Christmas too!
We ate at the Mystic Grill for supper, and it was fantastic. I got shrimp and grits…
…and Travis got this humongous burger and fries. Not surprisingly, he ate the whole thing and finished off my dinner too. Everything was so good, but my favorite were the fries. Best fries I’ve ever had…I would go back just to eat them again :)
After dinner, we kept walking around the square and ended up at Scoops, an ice cream/candy shop. They had tons of different candy and probably 20+ flavors of ice cream to choose from. The kind we tried was delicious! After that, we were definitely stuffed. It felt good to walk off some of those calories on our way back to the room :)
The next morning we ate breakfast down in the dining room before checking out by 11 AM. It was a relaxing morning and so nice that we didn’t have to rush. Breakfast was really yummy–I’m always game for pancakes and bacon :)
After checking out, we drove back to the square and went in Town Square Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegars. I’d read about it on Trip Advisor, but it was closed the night before when we were walking around the square. I definitely wanted to check out it before we left Covington.
It was such a neat shop! Each container holds a different kind of olive oil or balsamic vinegar, and this picture only shows part of the store. There were so many different kinds, and you could sample anything you wanted! They had pieces of bread for dipping the different olive oils in, and everything we tried was good! The owner even brought out small cups of ice cream for us to try the peach vinegar and espresso vinegar with. It sounds weird, but it was SO GOOD! I think we could have stayed in there for at least an hour or more trying everything. We ended up buying small bottles of 5 different oils/vinegars, and I would love to go back there again if we are ever in the area. It was so fun!
We also ran back in Scoops to buy some candy for the girls as a souvenir from our trip before we left town. On our way back to Trussville, we stopped in Douglasville on the west side of Atlanta for lunch at Chick-fil-a and to see a movie. We saw the new Star Wars movie (Rogue One). I’m not a Star Wars fan (I think I’ve seen one other Star Wars movie), but I actually really liked the movie! I’m not sure I understood everything fully :) but I guess that means I need to watch the others now.
Overall, it was such a great overnight getaway. Life as the parents of young children is a grind some days (many days?). It’s hard to have any kind of meaningful conversation when the kids are awake, and by the time they go to bed, we’re too tired to do anything but sit on the couch and enjoy the silence. Getaways like that are so important to help us reconnect and de-stress, and I’m so thankful that Paw and Rae Rae were willing to keep the girls for a day and a half while we were gone. And as a bonus…the girls did great! Savannah didn’t cry when we left (yay!), and she didn’t even seem overly excited when we returned or upset that we’d been gone. If you know her at all, that’s sayin’ something! And Brooklyn didn’t even bat an eye the whole time. I’m pretty sure she was excited when we told her we were leaving…haha. Paw and Rae Rae took them out for pizza and to the playground twice, so they were having tons of fun while we were gone. It helps to know that they are in good hands and having a blast when we aren’t there! Thank you, Paw and Rae Rae! :)
On the night of the 23rd, after we got back to Paw and Rae Rae’s house and ate supper, we all went to the Christmas light show at the Birmingham Race Track. It was similar to the Galaxy of Lights here in Huntsville except longer. This was over 3 miles of lights, and they were synchronized to music. It was really neat! The only downside? Apparently everyone else in Birmingham decided to go see the lights on the same night as us. We got into a long queue of cars and didn’t realize how long the line was until we were 20 or 30 minutes into it. I think we waited in line about an hour just to get started…it was nuts! Anyway, after we’d been in the car snaking through this huge parking lot for about 20 minutes or so, Brooklyn announced that she had to go potty. Of course! And there were no porta-potties, trees, bushes, or anything….just one giant parking lot. We tried distracting her by playing “I spy” and other games, but eventually she kept repeating that she needed to potty. And then she said, “I need to poop!” Even worse. I urged her to try to keep the poop inside. Her response? “The poop is not controlling itself!!” It was priceless. Thankfully, she managed to hold the poop in until we got back to the house, although she did wet her pants…poor thing. Next year, if we go back, we will have to go earlier in the month and take a potty chair with us in the car…haha. The lights show was fun though, and the girls enjoyed pointing and looking at the displays through the windows. We got back to Paw and Rae Rae’s pretty late that night and hurried to tuck the girls in so we could celebrate Christmas the next day!
Other Quotes and Notables:
- 12/19/16 – Brooklyn prayed : “Dear God, Thank you, God, for the food we have to eat. And thank you for the fish. And please help us to get out of a net if we get in one when we swim. And please help us not to spill paint everywhere. In Jesus name, Amen.”
- 12/23/16 – The doorbell rang while we were eating supper at Paw and Rae Rae’s house, and Brooklyn yelled, “Trick or treat!!!” Wrong holiday, dear :)
- 12/23/16 – “The poop is not controlling itself!” (at the Christmas lights show). I think this one is going to be a classic!
Next up…Christmas and New Years! Then, onto 2017!
