These Days

Sharing our family's highlights from 2014. March . Neil's pre-school graduation. Wicked the musical.  April.  Trip to Beijing, China with Papang, Mom and Em. Neil enrolled in Lozada swim class. May . The big move to the US. Road trip to Chattanooga, TN. June . Moved to rental apartment. Summer camp at YMCA. July . Bought a car. Blueberry picking. Neil's 6th birthday.  August . Trip to San Diego. Neil started first grade. September . Neil started karate. Business trips to Cary, NC and Chattanooga, TN. October . Road trip to Helen, GA. My 5th year in IHG. Dunwoody Festival. November . Thanksgiving. December. Lake Lanier. Christmas/NY in California.

We spent Saturday afternoon at the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History in Kennesaw for Trains, Trains, Trains! Lots of model trains on exhibit for the day, aside from the regular displays. I saw a website promoting the one-day event yesterday and I knew it would be good to take Neil to see the trains. Boys + trains, can't go wrong.=) The General . Lego train set Making an engineer hat. Interactive train sets Since we were already in Kennesaw, we dropped by the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park . We didn't stay long though because it was chilly and almost closing time.

We decided to book a hotel room during our Great Smoky Mountains road trip. The drive to the park takes more than 3 hours and we didn't want to leave too early, be on the road late or rush to see the park. Because this was a last minute decision, the closest hotel that had employee rate available was in Sevierville which is located about an hour from the park. It was ok because we were able to see more of Tennessee, particularly Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, charming towns popular with the tourists. We had dinner at Smokies Cuban Cafe in Pigeon Forge on day 1. The fried plantains and flan were my favorite. After being on the road all day... bed! We stopped at a few interesting places in Pigeon Forge. This was Wonderworks, an indoor theme park. This was the Titanic Museum where Neil broke a decorative item at the gift shop that cost $40. He was really shaken and sorry about it. We offered to pay but thankfully, they refused. More interesting places.