Rainy Days

I love a rainy day. It offers a great excuse to stay in your pajamas all day, watch movies, curl up on the couch with a blanket and read or just take a nap when at least one of your children does.

Two days in a row? Works for me.

I can handle a third day on occasion.

It appears, however, that four days is my limit.

It has rained now for five straight days. The first three it was almost non-stop. So yesterday morning, upon waking and seeing it would likely be another day where the heavens poured all day, it was more than I could stand.

I knew I was going to have some bored and whiny children and fast. The wheels in my mind began to turn as I prepared breakfast.

By 7:30 am I decided we would fly to Washington D.C. later in the evening and stay through Monday. I knew Matt wouldn't be able to go with us, but I'm comfortable navigating DC. I wouldn't have to lug car seats because of the Metro and I could have packed everything in one suitcase.

I could do it with two kids!

The exhilaration kicked in.

Then the cost of the flight came up on the Delta website. That idea was quickly nixed.

Not to worry. By 8 am I was set on Chicago. I had gone so far as to type in all the information for Jack and me (we still have a couple of weeks left before Mattie has to have a ticket) and picked our seats. I was just waiting on a text from my mother-in-law confirming she would go with us.

I wasn't going to attempt Chicago alone. We would have to take a cab at some point; maybe even more than once. That meant I'd have to take more than I or the children could possibly carry on our own. I'm also not as familiar with the layout of Chicago.

Alas, Chicago was not to be.

It's probably a good thing. I would have spent way more than I should have on plane tickets. Not to mention Jack was crying because Matt couldn't go with us.

I was not to be deterred though. I was on a mission at this point. We were going to do something that involved travel.

By 8:30 am I recovered from my disappointment enough to book a hotel in Atlanta for the night. It's not even a two-hour drive for us, so spending one night in Atlanta was much more reasonable - in terms of both time and money.

We got a great deal on the hotel. I realized that booking a hotel the day you plan to check in can sometimes be well worth the price versus booking a flight that way; the airlines know in most cases people are desperate and will pay the outrageous price.

When we got to Atlanta it was still raining. We headed to eat at the Atlanta Grill, which was on the second floor of our hotel. Anywhere that puts a basket of assorted bread accompanied with lots of butter on the table is my kind of place!

There was a lot of Southern food on the menu. I ended up getting a vegetable plate loaded with a cucumber/tomato mix, asparagus, fried green tomatoes, collard greens and macaroni and cheese. I also ordered a tomato soup, which we all shared. Matt had fried chicken. Jack and Mattie stuck to typical kid's menu choices - pizza and spaghetti.

After dinner we walked a block or two in the rain, but then it started coming down in a torrent. By the time we made it back to the hotel it was lightning.

We got up this morning and had a great breakfast buffet, once again at the Atlanta Grill. The kids got to eat free!

Then is was off to the Georgia Aquarium. More on that to come.