Memorial Day Weekend...

...in reverse!

Memorial Day weekend was great fun! I loaded my pictures backwards by accident, so here's the weekend wrap-up in reverse! lol. We spent Sunday and Monday in Chattanooga and had a great time! We ended Monday at the Chattanooga Aquarium steps to play in the water and a trip to get ice cream! Lily is such a little water bug... I hope her having a cast doesn't spoil her summer (she broke her arm this past weekend - more on that later). We are going to do everything we can to be creative and have lots of summer fun that keeps that cast dry! :-)

Chattanooga is such a family-friendly and fun city! They have all kinds of park-like areas on both sides of the river! This was our first time actually getting in the water features by the Aquarium... we usually play on the other side of the river when it comes to getting wet!

She's got the sassy walk goin' on! :-)


Before we went to play in the water, we took a boat ride!
Lily plays "boat" all the time! She likes to pretend she is on a ship with her American Girls! So, we decided to have lunch Monday and head down town to ride the Chattanooga Ducks! Mom and I have always talked about doing it just to get a little history and because we rode the Ducks in Seattle when we went! So, mom, dad, me, Chris, and Lily had a big lunch at Cracker Barrel and then surprised Lily with a Duck ride! It drives along the riverfront downtown and then drives right into the river (it's a former WWII land/water craft) and takes a tour of the TN river complete with nature sitings and history!

It was such a beautiful day and I got a ton of really neat pictures!

Lily (and the tour guide) surprised us all when she took the wheel...

He let her come up to the front and drive the boat down the Tennessee River!

How cool is that? We were all pretty excited!

Her we are with Lily and her quacker!

Sunday was the day we headed to Chattanooga to get together with family and to have an American Girl birthday party! :-)

Here are Lily and Bentlee! My mom does it up big time! They had the whole dining room table set will all of the Bitty Babies and American girls sharing dining room chairs! The girls announced that the boys had to stand up, lol! So all the dolls/girls had assigned seats and the men stood!

We actually did the gifting before we did the cupcakes! :-)

Lily got an American Girl Doll that looks just like her!

She named her Lily!

This is Lily helping Grandmommy decorate cupcakes for the party!

These two are inseparable - Lily's like my mom's little shadow! It's really fun for both of them! Chris was fishing at one point this weekend at the pond and Lily was out there with him. Lily came back in and I asked her where she was headed and she said, "Wherever Grandmommy is." LOL!!! Too. Cute. I have to admit myself, my mom is a pretty awesome gal and she knows how to make every ordinary day a fun celebration of life! :-)