Birthday Celebration, Part 1

A week and a half ago (the day before Spencer's birthday) we embarked on a little family getaway to celebrate Spencer turning 1. With everything that came last year with Spencer being born, we wanted to leave home so as not to be reminded of the negatives of his birth. We headed on a journey south that left me exhausted, but as a parent, happy for the experiences that my kids got! This will be a three-part series so stayed tuned in the next couple of days for the remainders of the journey!

Spencer's Birthday (May 20-21)

We made a very long drive Wednesday night to Atlanta, arriving at our hotel at 4am! Once we all got some sleep, we headed to the Atlanta Zoo to celebrate Spencer's actual birthday:) It started out rough with Avery peeing all over her car seat and through her pants on the way there...but once we dried the pants the day was lovely! It was a little hot but since it was a Thursday, there was barely anyone there!
The birthday boy enjoying the animals.
They had pandas!! Ever since I got to see pandas at the San Diego Zoo, I'm in love! They were so cute and Avery was excited to see them too:)
Avery's a joey!
Pumba!! We had to see the "pumbas" or warthogs:) These were the babies and they were really cute.
There was this really neat area in the zoo with a playground and it had this cool seesaw, Avery trying it out...
And Spencer even took a turn:) After the zoo we took Spencer for a mexican dinner-cheese quesadillas are one of his favs-and then he had an ice cream sundae.

Augusta, GA (May 21-22)
After spending two days in Atlanta (including a trip to Olympic Park where the kids played on a cute playground and then we got caught in an awful thunderstorm while walking the many blocks to our car!), we headed over to Augusta to visit Jake on base.
Uncle Jake and Spencer:)
Avery absolutely adores her Uncle Jake!
Jake and I outside his barracks. He showed us all around base and we got to spend a whole day with him, it was nice to see where he's been spending all of his time! Jake received his orders a few days after we left that he will be going to South Korea following his AIT graduation in August. We're going to miss him so much!

St. Augustine (May 23)
On our way to our final destination of Orlando, Fl., we stopped in St. Augustine for a few hours.
We had a little time to look around and we decided to check out the Fountain of Youth. It's a really great park and very beautiful
The actual spring that they found many, many years ago.
I'm hoping to drink away my gray hairs...am I looking any younger??!! I sprinkled some on the kids so we'll see how they age!!
The monument on the actual place where Ponce de Leon landed. There's a lot of history in this place and it's a really great atmosphere. I'm glad that we made the stop!

The next few days of our vacation to come, including how I became a rare statistic through an unwelcome encounter with a certain species of marine life...