My first trip to Birmingham was in high school when one of the most influential teachers to so many kids ever, took around 12 of us rural, middle class teenagers to UAB for spring break. Can you imagine? Stuck in a 15 passenger van with teenagers for 10 hours? Yikes! But, it was that trip, and the one I would take the next year with him that changed the direction of my life!
And thank goodness my fashion sense changed, too!
We visited UAB to learn more about science. We visited labs, drove up to NASA in Huntsville...and sitting here trying to remember...guess the academic stuff really made an impression! Ha! What did make an impression was the history of the city. The hot seat of the civil rights movement. Now, that made an impression.
My mom went with us my senior year and I can remember visiting the Civil Rights Institute and seeing the tears stream down her face. It was, and is, crazy to me that she lived this time period. That it was one generation removed from me. I loved getting to see first hand some of the places that I had learned about like the 16th Street Baptist Church and the bus station where freedom riders would have traveled through.
So, when we decided to take the kids with us, I knew I wanted to take them to the Civil Rights Institute. The girls really soaked it up and the boys are still too young to appreciate it, but I'm glad they were exposed to it anyway.
After that, we took a quick trip to see the Vulcan. Lizzy and I didn't venture up (I was too cheap to buy more tickets. I thought it would be free. Wishful thinking!). Jeff and Littles went up and came right back down. He said the view was just as good from the bottom and the kids weren't that excited about having gone up. It's definitely worth a trip to the park, just don't bother with buying tickets to go up in the statue. :)
During this time my old buddy and roommate, Seth, had texted seeing that we were in town. He and his wife, who lived on my hall and played basketball our freshman year, were staying in Montevallo for the night on their way to the beach. I was so glad our paths crossed! We met them for dinner at Milo's, which I had never had, but apparently Seth has to have it every time they are in Birmingham. His kids are the cutest and I hope we are able to visit them in Nashville this summer!
Don't Seth and I look the same as we did in 1995? :)
Then we headed back to Motown to see if any of Jeff's teammates had shown up for the game. The kids had fun playing and Jeff was able to watch a bit of the game and hang out with our friend, Morgan.
What a full and FUN day we had! The kids were so worn out. Who am I kidding? Jeff and I were worn out, too!
We enjoyed a little more baseball and play time the next afternoon. I thoroughly enjoyed the warm weather! We all got some sun on our faces and the outside time was just what the doctor ordered!
Sweet memories with our little family were made in the place where our family began!
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