Hilton Head Residency Part 2: New Year's Eve
We woke up in Oak Ridge, TN, on Wednesday, December 28, a short drive from my sister in Atlanta. Our original plan that day was to meet one of M's Peace Corps friends for lunch en route to Atlanta, but said friend had an unfortunately timed work emergency.
In retrospect, we should have visited the Oak Ridge portion of the Manhattan Project National Monument so we could have hit 2 of the 3 segments in one year. Alas, that thought did not occur to us then, so we headed out after breakfast, expecting to go non-stop to my sister's house. Alas, Birdie's stomach had other ideas. After perhaps 30 minutes on the road, the twisty roads of the mountains of Tennessee induced enough motion sickness to make her throw up her breakfast all over herself and her Pete the Cat stuffy. An emergency stop was made to clean Birdie up in the parking lot of a gas station. Thankfully, said gas station had a dog park, and Birdie was happily distracted by dogs playing. With Pete banished to a plastic bag, an emergency Skye stuffy from PAW Patrol was purchased to cover for him. From there, the rest of our trip to Atlanta was unremarkable. Pete went into the washing machine as soon as we arrived.
We stayed with my sister's family from the 28th through to Monday, January 2. My parents were also there for most of that time. Our time there was relatively unstructured. My brother-in-law is in an occupation that has an end-of-year crush, so he was working. My sister was on the second to last week of her maternity leave with her younger son, and her older son was home from daycare.
Given the circumstances, we didn't leave the house much. My older nephew was really into the Cars movies, and given the general exhaustion level around the house, all three were more or less on throughout our visit. We did a lot of collaborative cooking. We chatted a bunch. We went on several walks.
My sister, her sons, M and I and Birdie went to the Atlanta Botanical Garden on the 29th before our parents arrived. During that excursion she randomly charged to hug her cousin at high speed, resulting in a small collision of confusion.
On December 30 we walked all the way down to Piedmont Park to hit the playground. While we were there we heard the OSU Marching Band practicing for their performance at the Peach Bowl / National Semifinals when OSU would get edged out by Georgia. There was also some quality plopping at the pond near the playground.
From a holiday perspective, I don't think any of us stayed awake until midnight on New Year's Eve.
I'd like to tell you that Birdie and her older cousin bonded immediately, but aside from that hug collision they mostly did parallel play. We did get some cute pictures of them playing in a play firetruck at the playground. Birdie did like interacting with her younger cousin, which mostly consisted of waving at him since he was all of four months old. Birdie also really liked my sister's dogs and tried out all of her older cousin's toys. She enjoyed wearing a plastic block bucket on her head as a helmet.
We had a pleasant time with our family, but I had to go back to work on January 3. When January 2 rolled around, we hit the road again.
In retrospect, we should have visited the Oak Ridge portion of the Manhattan Project National Monument so we could have hit 2 of the 3 segments in one year. Alas, that thought did not occur to us then, so we headed out after breakfast, expecting to go non-stop to my sister's house. Alas, Birdie's stomach had other ideas. After perhaps 30 minutes on the road, the twisty roads of the mountains of Tennessee induced enough motion sickness to make her throw up her breakfast all over herself and her Pete the Cat stuffy. An emergency stop was made to clean Birdie up in the parking lot of a gas station. Thankfully, said gas station had a dog park, and Birdie was happily distracted by dogs playing. With Pete banished to a plastic bag, an emergency Skye stuffy from PAW Patrol was purchased to cover for him. From there, the rest of our trip to Atlanta was unremarkable. Pete went into the washing machine as soon as we arrived.
We stayed with my sister's family from the 28th through to Monday, January 2. My parents were also there for most of that time. Our time there was relatively unstructured. My brother-in-law is in an occupation that has an end-of-year crush, so he was working. My sister was on the second to last week of her maternity leave with her younger son, and her older son was home from daycare.
Given the circumstances, we didn't leave the house much. My older nephew was really into the Cars movies, and given the general exhaustion level around the house, all three were more or less on throughout our visit. We did a lot of collaborative cooking. We chatted a bunch. We went on several walks.
My sister, her sons, M and I and Birdie went to the Atlanta Botanical Garden on the 29th before our parents arrived. During that excursion she randomly charged to hug her cousin at high speed, resulting in a small collision of confusion.
On December 30 we walked all the way down to Piedmont Park to hit the playground. While we were there we heard the OSU Marching Band practicing for their performance at the Peach Bowl / National Semifinals when OSU would get edged out by Georgia. There was also some quality plopping at the pond near the playground.
From a holiday perspective, I don't think any of us stayed awake until midnight on New Year's Eve.
I'd like to tell you that Birdie and her older cousin bonded immediately, but aside from that hug collision they mostly did parallel play. We did get some cute pictures of them playing in a play firetruck at the playground. Birdie did like interacting with her younger cousin, which mostly consisted of waving at him since he was all of four months old. Birdie also really liked my sister's dogs and tried out all of her older cousin's toys. She enjoyed wearing a plastic block bucket on her head as a helmet.
We had a pleasant time with our family, but I had to go back to work on January 3. When January 2 rolled around, we hit the road again.