Back to ATL for a car

The next morning, we decide to go to brunch and Kevin picks a

sitting in the captain's seat

café near him. It’s raining, which Kevin states that it has been doing in Atlanta for a while.  He and John drop me and Oscar off and drive away as I’m trying to yell through a driving rain that the café was closed.  Oscar and I head into a market next door and I set him up with his happy meal at a table and find out that the market sells food and we decide to stay put and I had a great chicken salad sandwich, Kevin had the best grits with gouda that I have ever tasted and Oscar was very happy with his sugar cookie snowman after 

southern hospitality at its best

 eating his happy meal.  It turned out to be a happy accident that the café was closed and we returned to Kevin’s to see his pictures from his trip to Greece this spring, which got John and I super excited about his possible sabbatical in 2020.  The pictures are awesome and all of the islands that you can head to were so fabulous looking.  Even Oscar said that he wanted to go to the Acropolis, which made John very proud.  We got to hang out at 

more birthday... and new people he wants for siblings

Kevin’s while he had to go to work, danced to songs that we requested Alexa play for us and then called an Uber to take us to the Marta station.  Oscar was very concerned about getting on the train and it took longer for John and I to figure out how to buy a ticket than it took Oscar to figure out which train to get on and how to swipe the card to get through the doors.  It’s times like this that I really realize 

it's amazing how many people a mini van can hold

   how much of a traveler we are raising.  We got to switch trains easily at Five Points and the Marta system is really nice.  It was very clean, the trains were practically empty and we didn’t have any trouble with transferring even with all of our luggage.  We arrived at the North Springs stop after passing over dead stop traffic on the interstates and it made me wonder why anyone would drive in that instead of take this empty, clean train that cost $2.50 for our ticket.  It doesn’t make sense to 

O'Hare actually looking nice for once

me, but John’s best friend from childhood was driving through the pick up point when we arrived.  So, another seamless pick up by another Kevin.  This time, we had a carseat for Oscar which made us look a little more legit for the longer drives.  Oscar had to discipline their shih-tzu who wanted to jump and lick him a lot when we got to the house, but the chance to play with Camryn and Cole were enough to get him through it. Sleeping when there is this much excitement going on is very hard, but I think exhaustion finally kicks in at some point.  I got to do some shopping at the Georgia outlets, which seem to have the best deals even over other outlets that have the same stores.  So, I got myself some Christmas presents, John got to get his the next day when he went thrift store shopping with Kevin.  And Oscar has been in heaven with some younger kids to play with.  He wants to move to Georgia now so that we’re closer or have the Pittmans move to Michigan to be near us, we’re trying to explain why it doesn’t work that way, but it’s hard for him to understand.