The Cooper Family Visit

 Round two of spring break visitors came last week.  Our friends from WA, Joe and Amy Cooper, came to visit with their son, Aaron for 5 days.  When my sister flew out on Friday afternoon, the Coopers came an hour later.  They were taking a road trip and stopped here in GA for an extended stay. :)  It was great to have them here and Grayson loved having another little boy to play with!  The first day we took them into Savannah to see the sights.  It barely rains here in GA, except for the occasional thunderstorm.  Lucky for them, we got one of our little rainstorms while we were walking around.  They're used to Seattle rain where it's cold and drizzly all day and were pleasantly surprised to see that wearing shorts and flip flops in the rain here doesn't make them cold to the bones.  It's still rather warm!  

Will had to stop at the cupcake shop!

Grayson LOVES suckers!

Fell asleep still clutching their new toys

The boys would make a sneaky team if they just realized that one liked carrots and the other peas and swapped plates to finish their veggies!

On Sunday we headed to Tybee Island to soak up some sun.  We found that the best time to go is apparently in the morning because by the time we left around 2, the parking lot was filled and there was a line waiting for spots to open up!  Grayson and Aaron had fun playing in the sand, and Grayson even wanted to "swim" in the ocean.  Daddy took him out farther in the water to "swim" and he loved every minute of it!  Aaron, wasn't so sure about venturing out that far, but would play in the waves at the edge.  Joe and Will worked hard on building competing sand castles.  Will gave up on an elaborate one though after Grayson kept knocking down everything when he'd manage to get one wall up.  Will got one done as fast as possible while I got Grayson side tracked eating some lunch.  

Daddy hard at work on the sand castle...

... immediately followed by Grayson destroying what he had built!

Mommy explaining that he can't knock down the castle till they're done

Daddy's finished sand castle!

Destroy!!

After time at the beach we headed to "The Crab Shack" for some lunch.  There's alligators there that you can feed.  The boys enjoyed just looking at them.  Both the boys were very tired by the time we went home and fell asleep in the car.  They both did great though having happy attitudes throughout lunch without having any meltdowns! :)

Monday, Will had to go back to work, but the rest of us headed back downtown to Forsyth Park for some time in the sun and then off to Mrs. Wilkes for lunch!  None of us were hungry, so we decided to wait to head to Mrs. Wilkes till after 11.  Bad idea!  The restaurant is an old boarding house with the bottom floor as the kitchen/dining area.  The top floors have all been converted into condos now, but the bottom floor is family style seating (8-10 people at a table and you sit with strangers till the table is filled) where everyone is served the same food.  There's no shortage of choices though!  We counted 21 different dishes to try!  All of course are very southern traditions (i.e. black eyed peas, collared greens, fried chicken, mac n cheese, green beans, etc).  The place is only open Mon-Fri from 11-2 for lunch.  No reservations, first come first served. It is so popular that the line quickly goes around the corner of the block and we stood in line for 1.5 hrs!  Delicious food though!!!!  Will and I had gone back in November when he had a day off in the middle of the week.  We only waited 30 min that day since we got there early.  I knew what to expect though with how good the food was and kept encouraging others in line whose first time it was to stay there and wait it out.  No one  was disappointed!  The boys did great waiting in line due to the entertainment they received from a girl that was in line behind us.  Her parents were just as happy to have our boys there for her to entertain so they didn't have to listen to her complain about standing in line the whole time like a pre-teen does! :)  We got lucky and got our own table just for us so we didn't have to share any of the food and had plenty of mac n cheese for us all! :)  Grayson didn't even touch the mac n cheese though and gobbled down spoonful after spoonful of green beans!

the line for Mrs. Wilkes

playing with small sticks dropping them down to the bottom

Tuesday was their last day before they hit the road again on their road trip back to St. Louis to catch their flight home.  We couldn't let them leave though without a trip to the train museum!  Aaron loves trains and had a blast seeing them.  Of course at the beginning both the boys were rather unpleasant and we realized it was due to hunger.  After we grabbed a bite to eat we headed back to the museum and the afternoon went much better for us all!

Gray does NOT like the train whistle of the steam engine!

Happy to be out of the heat and in an air conditioned room!

We had a great week with our friends and wish we could see them more often!  It's been wonderful having so many visitors here in GA and being able to share our warm weather and sun with our poor NW friends!  :)  Next visitor is my friend Amanda who is coming for her spring break from work!