It's Official!

My hubby graduated from his FRL class last weekend, and I could not be more proud of him and his accomplishments! The kids and I along with my parents, and Ian's mom and step-dad all drove to Atlanta Thursday evening (so that we wouldn't have to wake up at the crack of dawn Friday morning). Ian and I survived our first ever evening in a single hotel room with both kids. It started off great - the kids went down a little late because Ian and I were still packing some of his stuff and cleaning up. But they eventually fell asleep. Ian and I quietly snuck into our bed (Charis slept in a pack-in-play by the window, Cayman slept on a pallet on the floor in between the bed and the wall) and we all slept great...until 2:00am. Charis started waking up...off and on until 4:00am!! I was EXHAUSTED. It finally dawned on me that she was probably hungry. We sat up in the room for a few minutes while she ate half of a Z-bar (my kids newest favorite snack! They're cheapest at Sam's...) and drank some water. Cayman and Ian fell asleep the whole time, until she finally realized Daddy and Bubba were somewhere in the room with her and she squealed "BUBBA!!" really loudly and scared Cayman out of his mind. I put her back in her bed after she was done with her snack, and she slept soundly the rest of the night. If she had eaten plenty of supper that night, our first experience as a family in a single hotel room would have been GREAT.

I was so excited to be going back to home office on Friday morning! Ian's brother drove from Charlotte EARLY that morning and got there just before our tour started. We got to walk all over home office with a tour guide. I think my favorite part was getting to see Truett Cathy's office.

Uncle Seth riding the cow in Truett's office.
I'm so bummed that something is wrong with my pictures...
I can't load all of them on this blog :(
Maybe I'll get to load more another day!

The graduation was definitely the most exciting part of the day. I had chill bumps the whole time! One of the most special parts was how FULL the atrium was - almost everyone working at home office stops what they're doing and come out to the atrium during the graduation to support the graduates. The graduates are announced and then walk/run down the red carpet (imagine a professional sporting event, where the players are announced, and they run out onto the field through a cheering crowd.) It was so exciting! Of course there are speeches - by higher up people in Chick-fil-a and by one of the graduates - and there's a lot of cheering and clapping and cow-belling. Tons of fun. It was a little hard to keep the kids quiet the whole time...especially since Daddy had Charis' passy the whole time and I thought we had lost it on the tour! What a special, special day! (Ian even got to take a picture with Truett himself!)

Following the graduation, they held a special luncheon for the graduates and their guests. Very yummy! The kids and I and all of Ian's parents all gave Ian a special gift because we are all so proud of his hard work. We gave him a special Chick-fil-A Fossil watch, and I must add that he wears it quite well! :)

After the luncheon, my parents left with Charis to head back to Augusta. The rest of us (including Bonnie, Gary, and Seth) drove to a different hotel in Atlanta for a fun evening! Read my next blog to find out what we did!