Labor Day weekend...a great start

After getting Lauren off to school yesterday Matt, Tyler and I started off our Labor day weekend with a 10k walk on the "multi-use" paths in Peachtree City. Matt made me maintain about a 13-minute-mile walking pace. (I only run a 10 min. mile for pete's sake.)

It was an awesome workout and now I'm that "good kind of sore."

Friday evening we had the Hancocks over for a community dinner.

Caprese Mini-sandwiches and Black Bean Salad were on the menu.

Dana ordered pizza for the kids (to make sure there was enough food for everyone) and she also brought over some chicken so we could add meat to our sandwiches. Let me tell you, this was the best! meal I've had in a while.

The Caprese sandwiches:

I made the sandwiches according to the recipe but divided each flat bread into quarters instead of sixths and added a slice of cooked chicken breast to each mini sandwich. Yummers!!

Don't they look de-LISH?!

The Black Bean Salad:

(It's the perfect party side dish.)

Today we slept in. Tyler got up at 6am but we told him to go back to bed. He came back in at 7am and we let him in the bed with us. Lauren woke up at 7am also but went downstairs to play. At 8am we dragged ourselves out of bed to start this fun day.

After a breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast from chef Matt we headed out to Home Depot for their Kids Workshop Clinic.

Lauren and Tyler each made a bean bag toss (aka cornhole game) and got an apron and a pin for completing the project. The workshops are once a month at Home Depot so we will bring the aprons back next month to get another pin.

Home Depot was also putting on a Game Day celebration and had fire trucks, face painting and a bunch of vendors in their parking lot.

Of course, we had to check it out.

Tyler's not too sure about the fire truck

but he warmed up eventually.

Lauren explores the back seat of the truck.

After the Home Depot experience we headed to the Cochran Mill Nature Center in Palmetto.

I wanted to go for a hike this weekend and a friend recommended this place as opposed to driving 2 hours to the North Georgia mountains.

Cochran Mill is a wild life rescue, nature conservatory and educational center. We saw 3 owls all of which were rescued from car accidents, many rescued "birds of prey" and more snakes and lizards than I ever want to meet out in the wild. They had a whole wall of venomous snakes. Freaky.

The children really enjoyed seeing all the animals.

The American Alligator

the Dragon

(Lauren said he was glued to the side of the cage.)

Birds of Prey

the iguana

In addition to all the rescued animals there were plenty of hiking paths.

We chose a 2 mile or so hike.

Lauren led the way the whole time

and Tyler brought up the rear

Complaining

The. Whole. Time.

(he must take after his Daddy in that respect)

run-off from the dam
resting

waterfalls

"Tyler, smile at the camera."

"Tyler, don't you dare smile."

Gottcha, you cutie-pie

After the hike we ate our lunch at a picnic table and then went to feed the fish some crackers we didn't eat.

Catfish, Carp and Turtles, oh my.

(catfish are Ugly!)

Mr. Turtle begs for food.

It was a fun, fun Saturday.

Matt is continuing the fun by watching the Georgia game at a friend's house and the kids and I are going to try to connect the computer to the TV so we can watch some more Wipeout episodes on-line.

Wish me luck because I have no idea how to connect the computer to the TV. I will basically scour the house for any and all cables and just see if one works.