Kids in America

After nearly four weeks of doing "boring" stuff, i.e. house and car hunting, shopping, more house and car hunting, and hours in the car, we thought Christmas Eve would be a day for the kids.

We started the day by checking out Panda Cam, Atlanta Zoo's live footage of their pandas. The baby panda seemed to be annoying its mother and she was either batting it away or dragging it to where she wanted him to be, which seemed to be uncannily mimicking what was going on in our room, with this mummy panda batting away baby Daniel panda!!

'Marvin' our GPS, didn't recognise "Atlanta Zoo" as a 'point of interest', as it's actually called "Zoo Atlanta" - interesting word order. Entrance to the zoo was heavily discounted because so many of the animals were not on display due to the weather - COLD!  What it meant for us was a very quiet day at an otherwise major attraction, and we did get to see some critters we wouldn't ever see in either the Melbourne or Sydney zoos, including flamingos, otters, naked mole rats - yes, they're real, and pandas with their babies!! Too cute!!

Competing for title of Pinkest Critter!

Sunbathing, otter-style

Naked Mole Rats ... They're not pretty, but they are cute!

Almost too cute to be real ... 

Someone was upset that they weren't "top" silverback!

Goodbye zoo, and off to Stone Mountain, which is part national park with significant historical significance related to the Civil War, and part amusement park ...

We arrived just before daylight faded, in time to see the famous carving on the rock face, the largest in the world. According to my trusty source, (starts with "w" and rhymes with encyclopaedia!!), the three figures are Confederate leaders of America: Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis, and the carving was started by the same person who did Mount Rushmore.

Disturbingly, I also read that the Ku Klux Klan had a revival at Stone Mountain, in 1915. Martin Luther King actually referred to the mountain and its KKK association in his "I had a dream" speech when he said "... let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia."

The part we took the kids to was the theme park area which was beautifully decorated for Christmas, with a zillion tiny lights covering every building and piece of shrubbery. Isabella declared that it was like a "real fairyland" and even Daniel was walking around declaring "lights on!!!". The amazing light display helped distract us from the bitter cold - it was 2 degrees, centigrade!!!

The kids loved the experierience of seeing a glass vase being blown, having their photo taken with Santa, experiencing the Polar Express in 4D (3D glasses and snow coming from the ceiling of the theatre!!), riding the Christmas Singalong Train around the base of the mountain, and seeing a fireworks display - complete with trapeze flying Snow Angel!!

It was, according to Isabella, "the best day EVER!", and it was a memorable Christmas Eve!!

By the time we got back to the hotel, we were all tired, cold and a little bit hungry, with the little girl keen to get to bed, so she could wake up on Christmas morning ... but, in true family style, we still had to eat. Luckily for us, a local pizzeria was open and opposite the hotel side entrance, so that was dinner, along with some mini vanilla cupcakes!!

Sorry, we were too hungry to take food photos of the Lenox pizza with Italian sausage, tomato, basil, mozzarella and mushrooms on a garlic base, but it was delicious!!

Merry Chistmas, Happy Chanukah and happy holidays to all!!

Daniel, Isabella, Dave and Sophie xxxxoooo