Crossing over

The wife, myself, and the boy went to Chattanooga this weekend. No problems that would be considered unusual for travels with a 6 week old occurred. In fact, the drive up took only 30 minutes more than usual. The drive back, however, took a good 3 hours longer.

Being that we were so close to Knoxville, I would have considered it a crime to not at least invite the Mullins family to have dinner with my wife and I Saturday night. Being that we had grandparents to babysit our son, we figured we would go on a date.

I won't lie that at first, I was hoping the Mullins' would find a sitter for their boys. I wanted a little adult time. However, plans didn't pan out like I had hoped. Thankfully!

They came to my folks' home and took a look at Tyler. But only after Issac had peed in my parents front yard. The boys were with them and on their best male-Mullins-behavior. Afterwards, we all went to the Chattanooga Choo Choo. Not much to do there but look at real life trains that are no longer in use. Some fun restaurants there, including one that had singing waiters. But entertainment aside, the menu looked like any Ryans Steakhouse menu and wasn't anything special.

So I asked a gift store employee of some local favorites and he pointed me towards the Aquarium where there was a fine assortment of restaurants, including the one we ate at; Easy Seafood (Chefs nick name is Easy). The wait was 15 minutes, so we walked a block to the aquarium where there is a wide assortment of fountains, pools, and waterfalls that kids typically play in. One look at this from the Mullins boys and that's all she wrote. With their mother saying "don't get your shorts wet!" it seemed to only dare each of them to see how close they could get without getting water on their shorts to the point where Caleb was simply running straight through the fountain.

10 or 15 minutes later we go back to Easy and are seated. The food was great. Not a place I will make a bee-line to go to each time I go to Chattanooga, but if I have kids with me, i will. VERY kid friendly. Chalkboards, goldfish snacks for the kids, etc...

Afterwards, we found this huge waterfall of steps that loads of kids and families were cooling themselves off in. My brother takes his daughter here often. The kids loved it, to the point where my wife was telling me to take off my shoes and run down the stair of water to get Caleb before he hurts himself as he ran down these stairs without fear.

The night ended appropriately... as Larissa and I were leaving the parking deck, we passed the Mullins only to see their youngest completely naked by the car and loving every minute of it.

All in all I was very happy to have had their boys with us. Caleb is a hoot. He purposely will not look at a camera when you take his photo, which had me laughing alot. I have crossed over I think... from a childless guy who prefers to be with my friends without their kids around, to a parent who doesn't mind it so much anymore.