Fernbank Natural History Museum- Henry.

Despite the fact that we only got home on Wednesday, papa had to leave Thursday to go down to Atlanta for a conference. He had to go back on Saturday for another talk, so we decided to go with him.

While he was off presenting, he dropped us off at the Fernbank Natural History Museum. It had a huge Argentinosaurus that was so big we couldn't fit the whole thing in the picture.

We ate lunch in the cafeteria and spent the afternoon playing in all the kid's rooms. I fished in the pond.

And fed the baby birds worms.

But the best part of the whole museum was the flower pollination game.

You put the wiffle balls in the flowers and they go through a maze and come out the bottom. We easily played with this for over an hour.

We visited the Naturalist Center for a presentation of live animals. Mama was impressed because for the first time in my life I raised my hand and asked a question. ("How old is the snake?" ) Then I got to touch the snake!

After papa was done with his conference, we went out to eat to watch the Bengals lose another playoff game in the first round. Despite the loss, at least mama and papa got to watch the whole thing because both June and I were very good for the whole three hours. Thanks again, Grams and PawPaw for the Leapster video game. It kept me happy for hours.

On Sunday, we bummed around most of the day. Mama spent most of the day sleeping and watching football. The south has changed her because she can't seem to keep warm in our 68 degree house. She was curled up with her hat on under a blanket when I decided this umbrella would probably help her keep warm. I'm just that nice.

The drive home-June.

We left Columbus bright and early and had a good drive through Ohio and Kentucky. When we got to Tennessee, we decided drive through Gatlinburg and straight down to South Carolina instead of driving the detour of 40 an hour east then driving back west.

Good thing we took the back roads, because it was a beautiful drive over the mountains.

Mama and I got out of the car to enjoy the beautiful snow on the north side of the mountains.

And it wasn't even that cold.

Of course, I had to pee at that moment. It was a very scenic rest area.

It was beautiful and the roads were well-plowed (believe it or not), so we didn't have to worry about too much ice.

As soon as we hit the peak (Clingman's Dome) on the Tennessee-North Carolina border, the snow disappeared. All that southern sun.

Though the snow was gone, there were still spectacular icicles all along the road.

If we thought the main road through the Smokies was remote, the drive through Georgia and into South Carolina was twisty and curvy and most of it had to be taken at about 10 miles per hour. We were pretty good, even though I was tired of driving and Henry was mad at mama for not stopping at the Dinosaur museum he saw in Pigeon Forge. (Mama later threw a fit because not only did papa refuse to stop at Dollywood, he also refused to stop at the Steakhouse Cafeteria when we drove threw Wallahalla!).

And thus ended our epic Christmas vacation. We're glad to be back home and very glad the neighbors didn't put it up on the market when we didn't come back. There's a bit of a cold snap down here (highs only in the thirties!), so we've been wearing some of our warmest clothes. Papa and I agree that this sweater is very embarrassing.

Back in Mern- June.

Since we missed out on a few days at the beginning of our trip, we decided to spend a few more days at Gram's house.

Sadie and I snacked and watched some football.

Periodically, someone changed my diaper and I continued to be lazy.

Henry and I tried out our new markers and coloring books.

On the second (or third), Henry found a bag of New Year's supplies and insisted on throwing a birthday party. You can tell by Aunt Girl's expression that the noisemakers were very loud.

We had a countdown and papa exploded all the poppers at once.

Henry got to explode on of his own.

Then we threw around streamers for a while.

So you know, even though it was at night, those are still my jammies from last night. Who knows what happened to June's clothes or if anyone ever bothered putting new ones on her.

Aunt Girl and mama baked a cake in Aunt Girl's new huge cupcake pan. the top didn't turn out, but we still got to decorate the bottom. I was so excited about singing "Happy Birthday" and blowing out the pretend candles, that I fell face first into the cake. Luckily, Jill caught me before we lost the whole cake.

After all our traveling, we were just glad to hang out and relax (with someone else cooking and plenty of people to play with us). Even poor Jazzie was feeling the exhaustion of the long Christmas break. Mama was in the same position, except on the couch.

WildLights- Henry.

On New Year's Eve, we headed back to Columbus so we could go see the lights at the zoo with the Turners.

While the outside animals were all tucked away in their warm houses, the aquarium was still open.
Sadie stuck her hand in to try and touch a ray.

The girls liked the big aquarium.

I spotted a shark.

Then we all went for a ride on the big carousel- the highlight of any zoo.

Unkie held Juner on her horse.

Sadie picked this pretty brown horse.

I got to ride on my horse all by myself!

The lights were very spectacular.

Thanks for taking us to the zoo, Turners!

After the zoo, we got a big treat and all the kids got to go back to Grandma's house to spend the night. The grown-ups went out to eat (virgin margaritas, please), then stayed up late play charades just because they could. And they didn't even get up until 10 am on New Year's Day. Thanks Grams!