All American Girl

Well, it's official. The Ocho is nine. And no, we won't be changing her nickname. If you'd done your research you'd know it has nothing to do with her age. (Click HERE for it's origin.)

Allow me to give you a brief synopsis of our little road trip to Hotlanta. First, we entertained ourselves on the long drive by playing the license plate game (we collected 31 states! A Wood family record!). Then we found a rockin' southern gospel station on the radio and tortured Ocho as we sang "well, don't you know" at the end of every phrase. The tables turned when Ocho & I tortured Handiman by singing "Found a Peanut". We also listened to The Ocho exclaim "I'm going to explode of happiness!!" more than once.

Our first stop was The Peachtree Grill for lunch. Handiman ordered a Roast Beef Panini which can now be added to his long list of foods that will surely kill him. Next we stopped at our hotel where Handiman demanded a nap before the Big Event. You can imagine how well that went over. We were soon on our way to The Store. Where we purchased The Doll. And we basked in The Wonder Of It All.

Afterwards we perused the mall then headed to The Varsity for dinner. (I'm pretty sure Big Nanny wouldn't have forgiven me if I hadn't made a stop to see what all the fuss is about.)

Saturday morning we woke up to sing happy birthday, head back to the store where Ocho could spend her big wad o' cash and then have a birthday lunch at The Bistro which was almost more girlyness than Handiman could handle. Once that was over, we headed downtown. I had requested a visit to The Coke Museum where we met The Polar Bear and tasted Coke products from Africa. It was interesting and fun. Once that was done, we headed to Handiman's requested destination, The Underground.

Now, if you've been to Atlanta in the last 20 years maybe you already know why that's funny. But since neither of us had been, we had no idea what we were walking into. While our stay there was short (probably 10 minutes max) we certainly got our money's worth. Handiman watched a drug deal go down in the bathroom, I found some really great places to shop should I ever be invited to a dinner party at 50 Cent's house and The Ocho was introduced to a whole new side of urban culture. We were standing by the escalator waiting for Handiman on his second attempt to find a restroom without drug dealers when a group of people ascended looking like they were headed straight for a Yo! MTV Raps reunion. I watched her as she studied them. Once they were gone she shot me a confused look at said "Mommy, was that a Bling Bling Posse?" Yes. Yes it was.

So, that was the only hiccup in an otherwise successful and fun Birthday Extravaganza Weekend. Now, allow me to get to the part that the grandparents are waiting for. Meet the newest member of our family, Kit Kittredege:

It turns out Kit fits right in. She enjoys TV:


Matching PJ's:


Eating Hot Dogs:


Shopping:


Ice Cream Sundaes:


And meeting Polar Bears:


She also got the honor of joining The Ocho in her inaugural ride without a booster seat. (This was the second most highly anticipated event of our trip.)


She also accompanied us on our visit to The Underground but we refrained from taking a picture. Although, it would have been all kinds of awesome to have a pic of her with The Bling Bling Posse, I figured it might also land us on the nightly news.

It was an All American celebration and I'm certain we must have stimulated the economy. And from the looks of things, 9 is the new 16.