Birmingham To Atlanta... Meeting Mailon!

How about some more football...

 With our friend Tucker...

... The future Auburn vs. Alabama rivalry... 

We had so much fun staying with Emma Raines, Tucker, Finley, Natalie and Wayne for one night... We are always so thankful for their hospitality and Wayne even made a wonderful fire that my kids loved.  I am so thankful our children have been able to visit a few times this year!  They always have so much fun!

After we left Birmingham we drove to meet my cousin Jennifer, her husband Dave and NEW BABY Mailon who live in Mobile, AL!  Just worked out that we were able to meet up while they were visiting my aunt and uncle in Griffin!  I was thrilled!!  Mailon is PRECIOUS!  We had lunch but Karoline was developing what ended up being a very high fever so I was quite distracted with her during our quick visit!  I hated that but something is better than nothing!  Living so far apart I was thankful we could meet in the middle.

My Aunt Betty Jo with Mailon... 

Friday turned out to be quite the day... we had to get my dad on the phone to get a hotel in Buckhead LAST MINUTE on the day before New Years and New Years WITH the Chick-Fil-A Bowl going on!  He amazingly was able to get us a great room close to Brent and Leigh's house with his hotel points and we headed straight to the CVS and to the hotel to put our fever stricken daughter in the bed.  We were afraid she was getting the flu since Linda had had the flu.  We made tentative plans on what to do Saturday since we had tickets to the game but just PRAYED we didn't have to follow through with them. She wanted to go to the football game so badly!

She slept all day and would get a fever, then it would break and she was wired as any other healthy child... then a fever again... it got up to 104.3 at one point and I think that was the last one she had.  Through the night she slept fine and woke up fever free!!!!  She felt great and we headed to spend a little time with Pressley and Jackson, and Fairley... the CUTE new puppy.

This guitar has been in my family for YEARS!  We found it in our driveway (in a case) when I was in elementary school... Leigh gave it to us to continue the family tradition :)

We got to visit and then headed back to the hotel but made a WONDERFUL detour to The Cheesecake Factory!  It was wonderful!  Then we rested, didn't want Karoline to overdo it, then got ready for the big game.  Leigh was sweet and made sure we were well fead before the game and Brent was sweet and drove us to the Dome, thankfully 2 miles from their house.  We were BEYOND thankful Karoline was well and we could enjoy the game as a family!  .... We were ready to ring in the new year with an AUBURN WIN!