Atlanta

All the Gibson adults went to Atlanta to see Devon's dad receive his Silver Buffalo, the highest award you can receive in scouting.  It was a really big deal and really neat that we could be there.  It was so fun to have a little getaway with just Devon and I (and his family).

It was a little crazy!  We left as Devon's birthday ended at midnight.  The day went like this: 

• 2:30 the kids get home from school 
• 3 celebrate Devon's birthday 
• 4 leave for Dylan's baseball game - grabbing fast food to eat while watching 
• 5 Dylan's baseball game (almost 2 hours long)
• 7 Austin's preschool graduation
• 8 get kids in bed
• finish packing
• leave for the airport at 10
• leave on flight at 11:55 pm

We were also supposed to go to Ethan and Jayden's pack meeting at 6:30, but we decided that wasn't going to work since we all wanted to go to  Austin's graduation and everything else that was going on.

We all got to Atlanta at 6 am.  Let me tell you, I am not a "go without sleep" kind of person. I need my sleep.  Without it, I usually don't feel very good.  We had to take the train to our hotel, and once we got there we were so happy to find our hotel would let us check in right then.  So we all went to our rooms and crashed.  I was so happy to have a bed to sleep in.  Once we were all awake, we got some lunch then went to go find something to do.

We went to the Coca-Cola factory. It wasn't our first pick, but the aquarium we wanted to go to that was next door was like $45 a ticket, so we decided it wasn't worth that.  We wanted to do something, so this became it.  I had been there in high school on choir tour, but I couldn't remember that much about it, so was pretty sure we weren't going to be wowed.  We made it fun.  I think I don't really care for other countries sodas, though.  Truthfully I don't care for a whole lot of soda anyway.  But, still we had fun.

That night was the big award night.  Before it all started we had to go to a picture session and a practice for those going on stage.  Since it is all televised, everyone needs to know what is going on.  It had already been decided only the boys and also Tiffany would go up.  Once the pictures were done those of us not going on stage got to go listen to Elder Oaks speak to the LDS scouters.

After that was a time for a reception for those getting awards.  Devon's parents stood by a sign with his name on it and lots of people came by to shake their hands and congratulate them.  All of the rest of us stood around and visited while we waited for the dinner and awards ceremony.   It was a decent wait, and we had been walking quite a bit, so I think most of the girls feet were starting to hurt.  Several us took our shoes off as we stood to the side, hoping no one would notice.

Dinner was great, and the awards were good too.  It was fun to learn about all the different people who were receiving the Silver Buffalo.

The next day we went to Six Flags.  It was so fun to go to an amusement park with only adults.  Of course I realized that the reason the Gibson's move slow at amusement parks isn't because of the kids...

Devon's mom was so worn out at the end of the day, so the boys tried different ways of carrying her to the car.  There was a shuttle and I even started to get in line for it, but no one else seemed to think it was a good idea.  Call me crazy, but I think it made the most sense.  But, I guess I wouldn't have gotten this cute picture.

That night we ate at a yummy southern restaurant called Mary Macks.  It was so delicious and from what I understand, authentic southern food.  We were really lucky on our timing.  It was hard finding a parking spot, so we dropped Devon off to find out what kind of wait time they had.  They said for a group of 16 the wait usually would be over an hour, but that if we would all be there in the next 10 minutes or so, we could get in immediately because they had just the right spot opening up right then.  It took everyone about 10 minutes to get there, so we were super lucky.  The last driver took a tiny bit longer to find a spot to park, but they let us get seated anyway (its possible we didn't really tell them that we were still missing one person).