End of Summer trip

We took a mini vacation last week before Sullivan started back to school this Monday. We went to Chattanooga for two nights, and had a blast. We love Chattanooga and it only takes about 5 hours to get there from Oxford, which makes it about our max easy distance with kiddos. We stayed at the Embassy Suites since they have bedrooms with a door! It was nice to be able to put Evie down at 7, close the door, and still eat/watch tv/play without disturbing her. Staying downtown would have been ideal as far as access, but that door was very important this go round.

We did the ocean building of the aquarium the first day and walked to this little Italian restaurant in the arts district that we love for dinner. By this time the kids were hot and tired, so we ended up getting our food to go and ate back at the hotel.

We had to wait for a shark to swim by before we could take a picture! 

 The next day we did Rock City, Ruby Falls, and the Incline Train. We enjoyed all of these, but it was too much for one day. I think we could have spent all day at Rock City just exploring and walking around. There are restaurants at the bottom and at the top lookout, so next trip we'll plan on having lunch there.

Cooling off with some free water from the bar at the top of lookout mountain.

Ruby Falls was neat and cool temperature wise. Evie slept through almost the entire 1 hour tour, so that was perfect timing. It's a little weird to think about being that deep under a mountain and all the crazy what ifs, but it was definitely worth doing.

 The Incline train was a nice chance to just sit and enjoy the ride. Definitely made me nervous when it got so steep at the top, but I managed ok. :) Sullivan loved it, of course!

When you can look straight and see out of the roof of the train, you know you are steep! Was sliding forward in seat a bit, and definitely made me nervous! Evie wonders what's the big deal?

They actually just park the train at the top on the steepest part, so you have to climb up and out of the train.

While waiting on the train to take us back down, I discovered Evie had her first tooth on the bottom right!!

Our last day we went back to the aquarium to do the rivers building. 

We stopped in Huntsville at the Space Center and played around for a while. It was brutally hot outside and we were worn out, so we didn't stay long.

Sullivan did his first 3-D ride while at the Space Center. I was worried he might get scared, but he LOVED it! He wanted to stay in and do it again! He's so grown up!

All in all, it was a great trip! Sullivan is at a very fun age and Evie is so laid back! I would love to go back to the mountains during the fall if we can find the time! We really want to do a longer train ride with the kiddos, and it would be nice to do it while the leaves are changing. We'll see.