Our trip to Atlanta Georgia

Jason had a Youth Minister's Seminar in Duluth Georgia, which is a suburb of Atlanta and since the girls had Spring Break at the same time we decided to go with him. Before I realized the two were at the same time I was really dreading him leaving us because it seems to be getting harder and harder for the girls to see him go to these things. Last time they both cried themselves to sleep when he left. So needless to say, they were very excited when they found out we were going with him. He was busy all day, with the exception of a couple hours at lunch and then he would be done by six in the evening, so the girls and I had time to kill. The first day we found an ice skating rink with open skating. They were absolutely thrilled!













After that we went and met Jason for lunch. Along with Dan Locke and a couple of his coworkers from Arizona. For some reason Kelsey took a liking to Dan a few years ago at Mathew and Emily's wedding and after that referred to him as "My friend Dan". She was only 3 years old at the time and since then his title has shortened to "Friend Dan". Even though this was McKayla's first time to meet Dan, that has always been her name for him as well. I think you can tell from this picture why they like him so much :-) When we parted ways again the girls and I went back to the Hotel to just relax.
For supper we met up with the four of them again and this time we went into Atlanta to eat at a Wild Buffalo Wing restaurant, or something like that. I can't seem to remember the name of that place. I want to call it Wild Bill's Buffalo Wings for some reason. We thought it was pretty cool because it was in a parking garage along with a two story Target and a three story Dick's Sporting Good's Store. You can tell we're from the country.



The next morning we had to check out of the motel by 11 so the girls and I found a park





We picked up Jason and had lunch in the food court at the mall. Much to the Kelsey and McKayla's delight, they also had a Carousel there.

We dropped Jason back off at the convention and then we headed to the Theater to watch Hop. I have to say, the GPS is probably one of the greatest inventions of all time! I found all these places like I knew where I was going, and that's saying something when you're talking about a country girl in the big city!

Unfortunately that brought our fun week to a close. It was time to go back and pick up Jason, say goodbye to Dan and hit the road. For our last Hurrah, we stopped at one of our favorite restaurants, Steak and Shake.

Changing tastes

This year for Christmas Kelsey told me she wanted a new room. Unfortunately she told me too late to get it done for Christmas but it started me thinking about it and so in February I decided to do it. I was a little sad because I had really liked the Tinkerbell room with it's two shades of green, light blue ceiling, my favorite color of purple on one wall, and the little "jewels" bedecking the border line. Not to mention the Tinkerbell fan I had found at Lowes for not such a good deal. I thought, well maybe McKayla's not ready to change, I won't do it if she's not ready. But.......sigh...... she was rather tired of Tinkerbell as well so I guess it was time. It had only been two years!

So we went to Home Depot to get some ideas for their new room. They went in the store with all kinds of ideas for a horse room, so we were ready to look at shades of brown, but we came out with all different shades of purple. Some of you know, purple just happens to be my favorite color but I want you to know I had nothing to do with their choice! I was happy with it though :-). We talked about all the different things we could do and then I got this crazy, let me repeat.....CRAZY, idea to do stripes! I drew it out on paper with the different colors and the girls thought that would work just peachy. Thankfully my dear friend Esther had some experience with stripes so she came and helped me get it all marked off. That in itself took a day! Just a little FYI for all of you painters out there.....that new froggy tape does not work as well as the old blue tape. I have pictures to prove it but won't bore you with them on here. So without further ado, here is the new room!
BTW, I love it and the girls thank me almost every day. I'm glad they convinced me to change it. :-) That white cabinet I had designed with big things in mind. I envisioned drawers along the bottom and doors alternating on the top two rows. After Jason finished the basic box he ran out of time, motivation, and/or money and I grew impatient and decided to just use it like that. Maybe someday we'll get around to finishing it. ;-)









I snagged the window curtains at Hobby Lobby on clearance and paid less for both of them than the original price of one. Gotta love that! As for their Tinkerbell fan, well, I put that on Craigslist and not even an hour later I had several who wanted it, along with the Tinkerbell lights. I ended up selling all of them to a friend from church so we're about to replace it with a simple white fan. Esther showed us the site for the instructions on those doll beds so Jason made them for their Valentine's present and I just got their sheets and pillows made a couple weeks ago. The girls each picked out their material they wanted. We still have to make the quilts. I thought I would use their old toddler clothes to make those.
This is something I found for their wall. I plan on building shelves and making a picture board also. As you can see on top of their cabinet, they have lots of little "treasures" that I would like to spread out more. One last thing I am having trouble finding in my price range is a soft fuzzy purple rug that is at least 6 1/2" x 5". This is proving to be a difficult task. There's also some little purple lamps at Target that I've been keeping my eye on for their dresser. I refuse to pay $30 a piece for them though. Maybe I can catch them on clearance one of these days. If you know of any place that has these items for a good price let me know! In the meantime, I'm hoping the girls will be happy with this room for longer than two years!