Just to get away

During the summer, I enrolled my kids in the summer reading program so that it would help Bradley with his reading and get Peyton use to listening to people read her books. Well at the end of the summer, they threw a big party.

Depending on how many books you read depended on how many times you could be entered to win the weekly drawing they held or the grand prize drawing at the party. Most of the items were something that they would lose interest in quickly so they were entered each time for the grand prize drawing. Peyton won tickets to Ripley's Aquarium. So we decided that the weekend school started that we would go and have a weekend get away.

Brad and I kept it a secret from the kids a week and left when we picked Bradley up from school. Once we got there, I think the kids were more excited about the hotel room than they were anything else. They took turns jumping from one bed to the other. Well Peyton did her best. It was so cute to watch them have fun and enjoy being around family. We had to be checked out of the hotel by 11 so we went and got breakfast at the restaurant that Brad and I ate at the first morning that we were officially husband and wife. Then we were off.

Below is a picture of Brad and the kids playing at the river that is behind the hotel.  Brad was trying to teach the kids how to skip rocks.  I can't do that at all.  I tried and it wind up sinking first hit.  Peyton had no interest in it and would rather find a "baby" rock and bury it.  Everything to her is a baby.  It doesn't matter how big or small it is.

 

Up until now, the kids still had no idea where we were going and what we doing. They asked what seemed like a 1,000 questions about what we doing, if we were there yet and on and on. It was great to see their faces when wr told them while we waited to get our tickets. Now even though Bradley didn't win anything, we still played it out like he did. He read and listened to 70 books this summer and she won 7 sets of tickets. What I mean there is that on each gift cerificate it said that you received 2 free one-time admission. Yeah and there was 7 of those babies in the envelope. A total of 14 tickets!!! We can go 2 more times and either my parents or Brad's parents could go and it will be all free.

It was nice to be able to go through the aquarium without having to worry about the time. Thinking that we have somewhere we have to be. I do have to say that it was nice to not feel rushed at all. We started to go through the aquarium and I had my phone to take some pics to upload on Facebook and my camera for just "us" photos. I started to take pictures and I noticed that my good ole low battery sign was flashing at me. I was like are you serious?  So Brad went to the gift shop to get more batteries and we were off once again.

It was hard to get a picture of the kids at each exhibit considering that they were so excited that I was lucky if they stayed longer than 10 seconds at any given exhibit. Then we went under the shark tank.

It was funny because earlier they were asking how the people got down there so it made it even better when we did get there. I think Bradley's favorite part was the moving belt that you can chose to stand on. Halfway through he actually sat down and waited. Just looking up at the sharks.

Peyton was a little freaked out by it. I guess she thought that one was going to get her. Speaking of that, there was a sign on the tank saying that there was a shark attk almost three years ago. Talk about making you have warm fuzzies. I was just glad that sign was a little more than halfway through.

 

 I haven't been since Brad and I got married so it was nice to go again. Below is a picture of one of the sharks. There is also a pic of a shark and to be honest not sure what other kind of fish.

 

 

After this, we were just in time to see a diver feed the stingrays.  That was pretty cool to watch.  Learned that the bigger stingrays are more aggressive so they had to be feed differently than the little ones.  When they finished feeding the stingrays, they asked for a couple volunteers and picked a couple from the audience.  The speaker asked the lady to bang on the glass.  While she did this, her boyfriend got down on one knee and the diver asked was holding a sign asking her to marry him. It was so sweet.  I was able to snap a picture.

 

 

I have really enjoyed taking this time to spend with the kids and it just be us. Sometimes it is just nice to get away.  Until next time.