You can do a lot in a day.

Whew.

Yesterday was one full day. We left the house @ 7:20 am to make it to school in time for Maddie and Ang to leave on a class field trip to the Museum of Natural History in Anniston, Alabama. Anniston is about half-way between Birmingham and Atlanta. Angela loves museums, especially the ones on Natural History (Please read this in a sarcastic tone...) but she'll do anything for her kids so she trekked along. It was a great trip as you can see from the pictures below.

Maddie and her teacher Mrs. Crowe (this lady is one huge answer to prayer!) eating lunch at IHOP (International House of Pancakes).



The typical "I went to the Anniston Museum of Natural History" photo...



Maddie's class - yep, that's all of them. (actually one was missing - Ang)



Maddie and Jalia, one of her best friends at school.



During the school day I went to Samford and did some research as well as going through the whole "Bod Pod" experience. Yes, I mastered my claustrophobia long enough to survive. I also learned that I am one of the more "fit" clients that Candi is working with...which doesn't say much for the others. Maybe I'll tell you more about that later. At 3:00 I picked up the other girls at school and we went to the local public library. It's an amazing library and one that we'll be frequenting (only about 3 minutes from the school). We killed some time there waiting for Maddie and Ang to return to the school at 4:00. They made it back without a hitch and then we launched out on a surprise for the girls. We were on our way to the "Build-a-Bear" workshop (they got gift cards for Easter) but I told them we had to stop by WalMart on the way. They were a bit confused because the WalMart was a long way out of the way. With the traffic it took us almost an hour to get there. What they didn't know was that Ace Young, of American Idol fame, was doing a "Meet and Greet" for his fans at that WalMart from 3:00 to 5:00. We hadn't told them because we weren't sure we could make it due to afternoon traffic. As the traffic worsened we told the girls (at 4:53) what we were trying to do, but warned them that we probably wouldn't make it in time. They are very spiritual girls so they began to pray. (Maddie also crossed her fingers...Not sure about the theological implications of praying with your fingers crssed to see an Americal "Idol") We pulled into the parking lot at 5:00 on the button, telling the girls not to get to excited because we had probably missed him. I let them out and they ran in to look with Ang while I parked the car. I got into the store just in time to see the girls pleading with Ace's bodyguard (who was probably 6'3" and 350 lbs.) to let them in. He had told them no, but their pleading softened him and he lifted the rope and let them in...they were the last one to see Ace. They were pretty excited as you can see below...








After a while of hearing the kids sing our praises as the best parents ever, we headed off for "BUILD A BEAR". This is something they have wanted to do forever, so it was fun to watch them enjoy it. Take a look for yourself...







We finally got home @ 7:30 pm. It was an exhausting but amazing day.