No more for me!

Jason and I went to Cracker Barrel last night.  We love Cracker Barrel because it's pretty cheap for the amount of food you get!  Anyway, I decided to try their new bread bowl with beef stew in it, and Jason got one of the pancake breakfasts.  I got macaroni and cheese with my meal... well, let's just say that didn't excite me all that much.  Usually, I can eat mac and cheese just fine, but last night, I took one bite of it and thought I was going to hurl.  I don't know if it was the texture, the fact that I had a glass of sweet tea before eating anything, or just the baby, but I almost wasn't able to eat ANY of my food!  I forced myself to eat some beef stew, and once I started eating that, everything got better.  So now I know I'm not going to try mac and cheese the rest of my pregnancy... at least not for awhile... just in case!

Ruby Falls, Chattanooga

Our Sunday last weekend consisted of going to Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga so that we could go see Ruby Falls.  A guy named Leo Lambert discovered Ruby Falls when he was drilling into the mountain in order to get down to a tunnel that had previously been close at the end.  His plan was to have tours down to the tunnel, which he did, but before he hit that tunnel, he hit another air space, so he decided to crawl in a tunnel about 1 foot (maybe 18 inches high at most) for 650 feet before he was able to stand up.  He and his friend were in the tunnel for 17 hours, but it paid off in the end.  We had it a bit easier since they made it so we could actually walk the entire way, but here are a few things along the way... a half mile back to the waterfall.
This was the cave we walked through.  If you notice, the crack goes all the way UP to the top of the mountain.  I asked the tour guide, and he pointed out that we were directly on a fault line.  It was pretty creepy to realize we were right on a fault line the entire way back to the waterfall!

We even passed the leaning tower on the way there.
At the end of the half mile, we came upon this.  They've put a nice light show with music together for the waterfall, so it's not naturally blue, but it's really pretty.  It's 185 feet tall, and they don't know where the water comes from or where it goes.  We were also able to walk underneath it and look up to see the top of the waterfall, but I wasn't able to get a picture for fear of getting my camera wet!
This is my absolute favorite picture of the waterfall.  Yes, I took this picture... it's gorgeous!!
On the way back, I had to get a picture of this reflection pool with the blue lights... also very pretty, although this picture is a little blurry.
As well as the western sunset.  They've done a really good job of using lights within the cave, and this is also a pretty scene to me.
Here's a few other things within the cave.
Finally, once we were back out of the cave, we went to the top of the building, and this was the scene of Chattanooga and the Tennessee River.  Beautiful day, but still pretty chilly!

Anniversary trip to the aquariums...

Ok, this first picture isn't from our anniversary trip, but I had to post it because I was excited to use my cookie press. :)  Aren't they pretty?  They were very tasty too, and didn't last long in this house!
On to our trip to Chattanooga... or rather Atlanta and Chattanooga.  Due to the number of pictures I wanted to post, there will be two different posts.  Friday night (the 16th) we headed down to Chattanooga and stayed at a hotel there.  Saturday morning, we drove another 2 hours down to Atlanta to go to the aquarium down there.  We had heard it was really big and had a special exhibit of Titanic artifacts on display until April.  Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the Titanic display, but it was an awesome experience to see different artifacts and read about different people's experiences.  The Atlanta Aquarium was definitely huge, that's for sure... here are some pictures.  These are nettles, no they're not jellyfish, they're nettles... a bit different, but still very pretty.
This is the giant fish wall where all the little kids were camping out.  I just love all the colors.
They had a moving sidewalk that went underneath the aquarium, and we found this GIANT grouper.  I know the picture's not that great, but Jason's there so you can see the size comparison.  That would be some good eatin'!
They had these grey sharks too, which are baleen sharks only.  They were very large, and interesting to see close up... just really hard to get a good picture of them!  I liked this picture because you can see all the little fishies underneath it that were swimming along with him.
This aquarium even had whales... beluga whales. :)  I've never really watched the way a Beluga swims around, but they have some strange movements they can make.
How would you like to see this looking back at you?  Luckily these were all babies, and on the other side of the glass. :)
We drove back to Chattanooga and still had the early evening to do something, so we went to the Tennessee Aquarium.  These next pictures are from the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, I think.  I thought I would remember which ones were which place, but now I can't remember... oh goodness!  Here's Jason looking for the 4 or 5 snakes that were in this tank.  I'm not a big fan of snakes, but he loves them.  There was actually one right in the corner next to his hand, but there is glass there, so he's ok... I think that one was a rattlesnake of some sort.
This is a wood duck.  Jason wants to kill one of these and mount it in our house.  Jury's still out if I want another duck on our walls... but it is a very pretty duck, so if we ever get another duck mounted, it would probably be this one, and ONLY this one!
This is the largest tortoise shell... pretty big, I think.
They had a butterfly room there too.  This was the only butterfly I could get a picture of because not many of them would sit still long enough before flying off.  Jason had a pretty blue one land on him while we were in there, but by the time I got my camera ready, it flew away.
And here's one last random fish... I just like the colors he has.
So this was our Saturday in Atlanta and Chattanooga.  The next post will be Sunday's adventure. :)

Happy Anniversary to us!!

Well, Friday was our second anniversary.  We decided to celebrate it by going to Chattanooga for the weekend... that'll be in a later post.  HOWEVER... Thursday night, I surprised Jason with this:

Jason was pretty excited that he had an anniversary present waiting for him when he got home from work... and then he pulled this out!
I believe his reaction was "NU UH!!!"  Then after the initial shock wore off, it was "I was expecting to come home, relax, have a glass of sweet tea, and eat something... not come home and find out I was going to be a dad!"

Yes, that's right.  We're gonna have a little one!  Jason's shock has worn off and he's pretty excited now, even though we weren't planning on working on that tidbit of our life until May... oh well! :)  It's still pretty early on (about 4 weeks), but Jason and I (especially me) are REALLY bad at keeping our own secrets, so I just had to let everyone know!  Pray that everything goes great with our first pregnancy experience, and that the little one arrives on time in September. :)

What's with the crumbs??

Taco is fat now... he has to sit funny today.  Why you may ask?  I made fish stick sandwiches for lunch because they're easy, and gave Jason two of them.  Well, Jason was in the process of getting ready for work, so he set his plate on the table between our recliners, and went to the bedroom to get his belt... I was in the kitchen.  When I came into the living room, Taco was jumping down from Jason's recliner, and I was a little irritated because there were crumbs all over the recliner.  I asked Jason how he got the recliner so full of crumbs... Jason didn't know what I was talking about.  Then I happened to notice that the top of one of Jason's sandwiches was missing!  Put two and two together... darn dog!!!  He scarfed down that piece of bread so fast... hence the crumbs and why he was getting off the recliner when I came into the room.  He knew exactly what he did too... and was feeling very guilty after that.  I told Jason to be glad we don't have a lab or he wouldn't have any lunch at all... and I would have just laughed at him for not thinking!  Darn fat dog... he's still searching for more possible food on Jason's recliner right now... and Jason's gone to work.  Sheesh...

New Year's

No pictures this time, however, I just had to post this because it's happened on every holiday so far. We got a wonderful phone call from Garrett on New Year's, but this time it was a bit different. Garrett called Jason on his cell phone while Jason was on his way to work, and he said Happy New Year's, but then he wanted to talk to me. Jason tried explaining that he was on his way to work and that I was at home, but Garrett thought Jason was joking with him, so Garrett said "I want to talk to Rachel RIGHT NOW!!" I thought that was funny.
Then I got the phone call at home too, so he was able to talk to me as well. We thought it was pretty funny how much he wanted to talk to me even though normally he's all over Jason when we visit!