Athens

We have a vacation coming in just 2 days, HOLLA! And when we go on vacation, the dogs go to our beloved friends in Athens for a vacation of sorts. I like to think of it as vacation for them because there are new smells to be smelled, new bushes to pee on, and hopefully someone there will walk and love on them more regularly than we do. Or at least will "pet" them more gently than the boys do. 

So when one is in Athens and one is hungry and cannot find a place to eat, one usually ends up at The Grill downtown. If the picture above was better you would see the name of the place in the pink neon lights above. Decent food, great milkshakes but I have to tell you that I have never been this sober while at The Grill. If you went to UGA, you know what I mean. So this is where I found myself while waiting for my grilled cheese sammich to arrive. Coloring cows with this little dude. He was questioning why I chose to make each cow a different color when obviously he was making them all green. Way to ruin the coloring, Mom.

Across the table there was more talking than coloring. Someone has hit his stride in continuous talk.

Having kids to us has meant having a built-in excuse for frozen yogurt whenever we want it, and after dinner it seemed only appropriate that we sit outside and enjoy some. Hmm. Tasty.

At some point while we were outside a group of townies came closeby. You know the type, too clean to be panhandlers but too dirty to be regular people. So we sat and tried to enjoy the ice cream, but the boys were really into the townies and were paying very close attention.

And then Townie #1 lit a cigarette. I cannot tolerate smoke, so under my breath I told K that I smell smoke and that I wanted to leave. C, having heard my comment, very loudly explained to me why I smelled smoke. "The man behind us lit a thing and its in his mouth and he is blowing out smoke and that is why you smell smoke". Ahhh....ok, gotcha, kiddo, gotcha. Thanks for explaining, and for doing it so loudly that you shamed Townie and he moved.

During my and C's interaction, G was staring and staring and then finally pointed and said "he went over to those other people. Those people are SO UGLY LOOKING". And then he continued to stare in disgust, like he couldnt fathom how these people looked like they do. So we are faced with the dilemma young parents probably face all the time: simultaneously wanting to correct his behavior by reminding him that we do not point at people and we do not say mean things about people, but then also wanting to burst out into laughter at the sheer shock of what he just did. Thankfully K is a better parent than I when faced with parental emergencies because he could keep a straight face while I stared at my yogurt, and he gave G the talk. And then also decided we should mosy on to another spot.

Which was The Arch, or the gateway to campus.

We had an hour of driving to get back home and decided it would be a good idea to get the kids to run around a bit, so for a good 20 minutes we watched the boys run to that tree way in the back and run back to us. G had a near unfortunate bathroom experience on one run back from that tree, but we managed to make it to facilities in time. And we managed to give a group of waiting young ladies a good giggle in down so, since G can be really dramatic about his bathroom announcements.

And last, I will leave you with this picture, which is the site of one of my and K's first kisses. I told G as much and the look of bewilderment and shock on his face was enough to make me chuckle for a good five minutes. Payback, baby!