Tennessee Aquarium

While in Chattanooga we took a trip to the Tennessee Aquarium.  For anyone who hasn't been it is a pretty large aquarium consisting of two separate buildings. One building houses all of the freshwater fish and a smaller building (but still large) houses the saltwater fish. They refer to these as the ocean experience (saltwater) and the River experience (freshwater). We decided to spend the morning at the larger building for the River experience, took a lunch break to eat downtown at a restaurant about five minutes from the aquarium walking distance and then spend the afternoon in the ocean experience. In addition to fish and other sea life they have otters and penguins. We were lucky enough to get there in time to see both the otter feeding and planned our lunch so that we got to hear the keeper chat with the penguins. We were slightly confused on where to start since we didn't have a map for the aquarium but this may have been an oversight on our part.  The kids loved watching the otters and there were also some amazing fish.The price is a little high but considering how much there is to see and do it is well worth it. There is also a stream outside of the aquarium between the two buildings to give kids a chance to wade in the water. There is also  a great mix of hands on experiences and  information and tons of chances to view all the awesome exhibits.

Piercy Priest Lake

We recently took a trip to Chattanooga for the Tennessee Music Teacher's State Competition.  Hopefully at some point I can post about all the amazing places we went while in Chattanooga. The kids loved it because it is largely walkable even with small children and there were a lot of fun family oriented things to do. On our way home we wanted to do something fun since the drive was only five and a half hours, but as anyone who has traveled with kids knows it can feel MUCH longer if they don't get a chance to get out and stretch. We were looking up fun places to go on our route and found Percy Priest lake near Nashville. It was about two hours from Chattanooga, and three and a half home so it seemed like a good stopping point for a picnic lunch and swimming on their beautiful sand beach. After reading some reviews of the lake we decided to try it out.  We went to the Anderson Road Day Use Area. It is $4 per car and I think the beach is open till 6:30pm but didn't see the opening time. We went on a Monday, it was sprinkling and overcast and surprisingly the beach wasn't empty.  We loved it!! There was a playground, bath house, and tons of picnic tables in slightly wooded area most with grills. The sand beach isn't huge, but big enough. There are some cool rock formations in the water and my children appreciated having their water shoes but almost everyone else was barefoot. A swimming area is marked off that is pretty large and only about 4 ft deep. The water was clear and warm enough for swimming despite the rain. We had an amazing time are planning our next trip back.

Summer 2015

I am horrible at keeping up with a blog, but love that it is here to go back to.
This "summer" has started out amazingly and we are still only in late spring.
It is our first "summer" vacation in our new house and we are really enjoying our huge garden and our much bigger backyard. The kids miss their playset from the old house, but Aaron built them a swing set as part of my christmas present. I love that he knows what I want most is to have them occupied safely and out of the house! He was also able to get a free basketball goal and playhouse (we love freecycle, curb alerts and Nextdoor!!) And we got a kiddie pool plus a slide (Kmart and the shop your way points are amazing) and the best thing we found was a larger pool for the big kids (shown in the picture). We now live around the corner from a Big Lots and were able to get a slightly larger pool than the one we had last summer without spending a fortune. We LOVED the pool we got from friends last summer but it was on it's last leg and between the kids and moving it needed replacement hoses for the filter, a new cover, and already had one patch.