Christmas Blessing #3: Emmaline

Even though grandbaby #3 did not arrive on Christmas Day, she still was a Christmas blessing arriving on December 27th:

 

We have gone from having no grandbabies two years ago, to now having three precious little granddaughters.

Isabella was so excited about her new baby sister.

 

Like her sister and her cousin, Emmaline is just precious!

With three little granddaughters, Pa now has plenty of experience getting grandbabies to go to sleep.

 

We helped Tafanie and Cory out where we could over the next couple of weeks.  We also cleaned out the motorhome and gave Isabella a little tent we had on board.  Looks like she's ready to go camping!

 

On our last night in Atlanta, we all got together for dinner

 

and took some pictures of our growing family:

Yes, I would say that we are VERY BLESSED!

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas in Atlanta

We checked back into our same monthly site #357 where we would be staying while waiting on grandbaby #3.  We were unable to get out with satellite previously because of all the trees.  Since most of the leaves were gone, we thought we might be able to get out this time. 

Chuck backed the motorhome into the site and before we did any other setting up, we turned the satellite dish on and guess what, it worked.  So we proceeded to finish letting the slides out and level the coach up.  The only problem was that now that the coach was level, the satellite did not work.  Rrrrrr! :(

  We were determined though!  So we brought the slides in and raised the jacks and kept working with it until finally we got the satellite to work AND were level.  Normally, we wouldn't worry about it, but we knew we were going to be there a month and with all the Christmas shows and college bowl games, we wanted to get the satellite to work if at possible...and we did!

Grandbaby #3 decided he or she did not want to come early like her cousin Avery.  But that was ok because we still enjoyed getting to be with the kids and the grandkids in Atlanta. 

We made Christmas cookies...

...and babysat so the moms could have a day out.

We drove back to Nashville for one day to go to the Gregory Christmas at Jerry and Pam's.  All the Gregorys got to meet Avery for the first time.

We had lots of fun and lots of laughs over old times.

 

We celebrated Christmas early with the kids and grandkids in Atlanta because Crystal and Grant were going to California to be with Grant's family for Christmas and because Tafanie's baby was due right around Christmas day.

Avery has grown so much in two months.

 

Isabella mastered the art of opening presents very quickly.

Avery decided she would just watch.

 

I think Isabella liked her new toys.

 

So did Avery.  :)

 

While we were staying at Stone Mountain, Chuck and I would try to walk every day and we would usually walk by the golf course.  Chuck found about 60 golf balls over the time we stayed at Stone Mountain. 

On Christmas Eve morning while we were walking around the campground, the fog rolled in over Stone Mountain.

 

You could barely see the mountain.

 

And even though the leaves had mostly fallen before we got there, Chuck still had to get up on top of the motorhome a couple of times to get the leaves and pine needles off.

 

On Christmas Day, Tafanie and Cory invited us to go with them to the Georgia Aquarium.   We saw lots and lots of different species of fish.  We walked under the fish...

...and beside the fish.

Bell made friends with Mr. Penquin...

 

and then she and Cory popped up to visit the penquins.

We had a great day at the Georgia Aquarium.  It was just a little bit cold so Bell wore her coat we brought her from Labrador (Canada) back home.

 

I think she will stay plenty warm in it, don't you?

 

 

Back to Nashville for a few days

After leaving Pensacola, we had to drive all the way back to Nashville before going to Atlanta for the arrival of grandbaby #3 because G&G had finally sold its building (yippee!!).

We decided to stay at Jellystone again but I told them that we would need to just pay nightly because if grandbaby #3 decided to come early.

Opryland Hotel has always been known for its beautiful Christmas lights and and Christmas decorations.  Jellystone also has a light show at Christmas too that people can drive through (for a fee of course).  Because we were camping there, we got to drive through it for free!

The park sold coffee and hot chocolate and I think even Santa Claus was available for pictures.  They even have drive-thru hot chocolate and hot coffee...

 

... in of all places to put it...right next to the dump station!  Yuck!  :(

 

We got in a few visits with mama too before heading back to Atlanta to wait for grandbaby #3.

Snowball Derby

On the Friday after Thanksgiving, we drove to Pensacola for the Snowball Derby the following week.  It was one of our longer driving days but the weather was nice and it was a pleasant ride.

Donald and Anna were coming in Monday to spend the week with us so the guys could go to the Snowball Derby at Pensacola's Five Flag Speedway.  The Snowball Derby is a nearly a week long racing event with several classes of stock car racing.  A lot of times some of the NASCAR drivers will come down and race in a couple of events.  It is also where you will see some of the young future NASCAR drivers.

On Saturday before Donald and Anna arrived, we decided to get our exercise in by walking the 2 or so miles to the race track and back.  It was not the best location for walking as there were no sidewalks but we got our exercise in and we were able to go take a look at the track because none of the events had begun.

 

One day during the week while Donald and Anna were with us, we drove to the Naval Aviation Museum.  We took a bus tour of all the old planes and helicopters they had on display behind the museum:

We saw an retired Blue Angels jet.

The old Navy Blue Ghost

 

And a plane disguised as a frog.

 

Then we went inside the museum and watch "The Magic of Flight" in their big IMAX theater.  It was a really good movie but I think we all got a little dizzy watching it.  We didn't try their flight simulator because we thought we would really get sick on that one. 

We walked around inside the museum where there were more planes on display.

 

And Chuck climbed into the cockpit of a Blue Angels' jet.

 

Ready for takeoff!

 

Chuck and Donald would go to the races in the evenings and there was lot of good racing which they thoroughly enjoyed.  The rest of the time we got some exercise in walking at the mall or playing cornhole and we also played many games of Skipbo.  And we got our fill of Sonny's Barbecue and the Shrimp Basket for dinner that week.  As always, we had lots of fun just being together and laughing a lot.

 

 

Thanksgiving 2012

We ended up staying at Stone Mountain a little over a month to stretch it out to closer to the time when we would go back to Nashville for Thanksgiving.  Because we were going to be meeting Donald and Anna in Pensacola right after Thanksgiving, we decided to just drive the motorhome part of the way to Nashville and then just drive up for the day to spend Thanksgiving with all our family.

On Tuesday, we drove to Henig, Tennessee, and stayed at the Hales Bar Marina and Campground on Nickajack Lake just on the other side of Chattanooga.  We got a very nice site right on the lake.

On Thanksgiving morning, we drove to Rick and Marla's where everyone was getting together for Thanksgiving.  We had lots of good food.

 

We got to visit with Grandma Velma.

 

It was so nice that a lot of us went outside on Rick and Marla's patio.

 

 

The boys had fun jumping on Chris and Lauren's trampoline.

 

 

Isabella tried it out too with her dad.

 

 

The trampoline gave her a new static hairstyle.

 

She and Cory played a little football too.

It was a wonderful day with lots of good food and fellowship with our family.  Something to be thankful for!