Journal Entry for April 2, 2016

This was the second consecutive weekend my whole family went out of town.  This time, we gook a much needed trip down to Tybee Island for our anniversary.

I can't believe it (but I really can).  My wife and I celebrated five years of marriage.  We've had a lot of good times and some challenging times in the five years since our wedding cruise in Jacksonville that warm beautiful North Florida Saturday in 2011.

We all loaded the family ROGUE before taking off for I-75 and beyond.  Everything was going smoothly.  We all got another sneak peek at SunTrust Park heading down I-75 near I-285 in Cobb County.  I like the progress the construction of the ballpark is making.

There was a bump in the road on our way to the beach.  We were all stuck in some really bad traffic on the Southbound I-75 before and after the I-675 merge.  We were moving about 10 miles an hour on the freeway.  The electronic message board said there was road construction and it would take 34-36 minutes to get 5 more miles.  That was insane.  It got to a point to where we had to make an exit while we were still in the Metro Atlanta Area.

We all decided to do lunch at McDonald's in McDonough.  It was between a Chick-Fil-A and a McDonald's.  McDonald's won out because it had a playground for Ben.

The fun was still to come.  After traveling down I-75 to I-16 and then onto U.S. 80, we hit our hotel on Tybee Island.  We made our destination as soon as we were able to.  After we unloaded the family truckster, we hit the beach!!!

We had a ball that afternoon.  Both Ben and Blake had their first beach days in their lives.  Ben would have another beach day on Sunday while I stayed with Blake to make sure he was healthy and not coughing.  The weather was too cold for Blake to go outside.  Afterward, we had a pizza dinner (and some chicken and fries for Ben).  I had two beers while I waited and gave my wife an anniversary beer for dinner.

Sunday was an important travel day.  We went out to lunch at the Crab Shack.  Ben had the Mac and Cheese.  Kelly and I had the admiral's sampler platter.  The food was pretty good.  Ben is not quite a fan of seafood yet.

We were getting tired and hot and we were itching to get back into the car.  Ben wanted to see grandma.  Ben always associated a long car drive eastbound to grandma's house.  Son, we will soon associate eastbound drives to the beach too.

We will be back to the beach someday soon.  Until then, it's back to the grind for me.