We were recently invited to come visit the city of Fayetteville, North Carolina.  We decided to visit after our recent Myrtle Beach trip.  Our family had never been to Fayetteville before although several of our friends have and several actually grew up there.  Greater Fayetteville is proud of its rich role in our nation’s history and holds fast to the friendly feel of a true hometown, while providing the cultural and entertainment amenities of bigger cities.

Upon arrival to Fayetteville, we first stopped at the Visitor’s Center, where we picked up brochures, information, and my kids favorites – passports!  The passports had a bunch of the local attractions and museums inside and when you went to that place, you could get your passport stamped with the locations exclusive stamp.  My kids really enjoyed this!

Our next stop was the Airborne and Special Operations Museum Foundation.  The Airborne & Special Operations Museum is owned and operated by the United States Army and is part of the United States Army Museum system.  The main gallery is designed as a self-guided tour, in chronological order, through the history of airborne and special operations soldiers from 1940 to the present.  I think my husband and my son could have spent all day in this museum!  There was so much history and as you walked through, you were able to see weapons, uniforms, aircraft, and more from each of the wars.  This museum was free to visit!

From there we visited the North Carolina Veteran’s Park.  This was right across from the Airborne Museum.  This park was fairy small and didn’t take a lot of time to check out, but it was very sobering.  The picture on the left above was a wall with dog tags featuring the names of every North Carolina Casualty from the different wars.  Yes, each of those little silver things is a dog tag.  Very, very sobering, and this was just from North Carolina.  This park was also free to visit.

After this, it started pouring down rain so we went ahead to our hotel, Fairfield Inn & Suites – Fayetteville North.  This hotel is brand new, super clean, and fit us perfectly!  We had a 2 Queen Bed Studio Room with a sofa bed.  This room features a large fridge, sink, and even a dishwasher!  I loved the color patterns in the rooms as well.  Nice and bright and modern. Our absolutely favorite feature was the HUGE glass shower!  It was so wonderful and relaxing!

Look how beautiful the rooms are!  And the beds were so super comfy that we slept very soundly!

After we got settled in our room, we headed out for my birthday dinner!  The Mash House graciously invited us in and provided gift cards for us to use during our dinner.  The food at The Mash House was absolutely incredible.  So much flavor and great atmosphere!  Their items are made from scratch in house so perfectly allergy friendly!  My kids gobbled down their macaroni and cheese and fresh pizzas in no time at all.  My husband enjoyed sampling a few of their beers and settled on their most popular, the Hefeweizen.  My husband enjoyed their NY Strip Steak and the garlic mashed potatoes as a side were fantastic!  I loved my Mushroom Stout Burger with Asparagus!  Their desserts are fantastic as well.  They offered a red velvet cheesecake, and then my favorite, the Chocolate Stout Cake!  Perfect for a birthday dinner!  This definitely ranks as one of my favorite restaurants!  We will definitely be returning the next time we’re in Fayetteville!

For more, see our 2nd day in Fayetteville!

This past weekend, we headed on over to Stone Mountain to play in the snow along with many other local bloggers.  Snow Mountain has become a fun family tradition for us.  My kids love playing in the snow, which is a rare occurrence here in Georgia.

We started off playing over at Fort Snow, where my littles were able to go down the little tube slides.  When it was our time slot, we hit the slopes!  We did the family ride several times and then my big kids did the single rider tube slides a bunch of times.  The big kids loved the slides.  My littles liked them, but really preferred to play in the snow at Fort Snow.

Great time was had by all!  If you’re interested in going, Stone Mountain is offering up Snow Mountain Camping packages.  Deals start at just $119 and include snow mountain passes and camping!  We went camping at Stone Mountain last year and it was a great experience.

While we were in Tampa to visit Busch Gardens, we were able to explore other areas of Tampa Bay as well.  One in particular was the Florida Aquarium.  We had never been here before but were throughly impressed!

As we arrived, the first thing we saw was a touch tank!  They ended up having 3 different touch tanks and we were able to touch everything from a sea cucumber (which feels REALLY different than it looks) to a stingray.  Funny story about the sea cucumber…. I had touched the starfish, an anemone, and other animals in that tank.  My husband convinced me to touch the sea cucumber which looks really bumpy, hard, and almost prickly.  I barely touched it and it felt like JELLO!  I pulled my hand back super quickly and may or may not have let out a quick scream making my entire family laugh.  Far warning, things don’t always feel like they look!  My kids loved the stingray touch tank.  It was fun to try and figure out which stingrays were going to swim by and to get where we could touch them.

The Florida Aquarium was decorated for Christmas and had some lovely decorations.  This one I almost bought, but forgot to go back and get it when we were leaving!

I loved that the Florida Aquarium wasn’t just fish.  They had a fun exhibit featuring animals from Madagascar such as the lemurs!  Everywhere was fun facts as well so we learned a lot.

Our favorite part of the Florida Aquarium was the shows.  Be sure and ask at the counter what time the shows are when you visit.  We were able to get really close and personal with some penguins.  Did you know penguins can spray poop 6 feet behind them?  That sure is nerve wracking when you’re in the front row!  They let the kids sit right up on the edge of the mat, but were not allowed to touch.  My kids thought that this was amazing!  We also really enjoyed the dive show.

After we finished at the aquarium, we walked down to Precinct Pizza.  We loved their food, however I’d warn my allergy friends that they aren’t quite allergy friendly, yet.  They are just a short walk from the aquarium.  After reading the story behind Precinct Pizza, we knew this was a business we wanted to support.

We were very impressed with the Florida Aquarium and would definitely return the next time we are in Tampa Bay.  Huge thanks for our friends at Visit Tampa Bay and the Florida Aquarium for setting up our visit.  You can learn about other great places to visit in Tampa Bay by checking out VisitTampaBay.com.

Last week, my family and I took a quick trip back to Busch Gardens as part of their ambassador program.  We went in the middle of the week and it wasn’t crowded at all!  We were able to walk on almost everything, which was perfect for us.  As we walked up, everything was beautifully decorated for Christmas.

We wandered around the park, picking our favorite rides and riding them until our heart was content!  I really enjoyed Cheetah Hunt.  That’s a really cool roller coaster than runs on magnets!  What a great ride!  Definitely going to be one of my favorites.

My little girls hung out the most in Sesame Street.  Everything was their size and perfect for their age.

My husband really enjoyed the Sheikra.  that’s him in the back row in the orange shirt.

Right now they have their Christmas Town on select days.  Guests can look forward to special entertainment, live music, festive treats, holiday shopping and thousands of twinkling lights around every turn. It’s a Christmas event that’s fun for the whole family!  Unfortunately we didn’t go on one of those days but we still had a blast!  We got to see all the decorations, though!

Our family has really enjoyed being part of the Busch Gardens ambassador program this year.  It’s been great to learn more about what all they have to offer.  We have been really pleased and our kids are already asking about going back.  I love that it has a perfect blend of stuff for little kids, bigger kids, and adults.  Add in all the animals and everyone is happy!

Thank you so much Busch Gardens for this opportunity.

This past weekend, we visited Stone Mountain Park for their Stone Mountain Christmas program.  It was a ton of fun!  Believe it or not, we had never been to the Christmas program even though we’ve been to Stone Mountain a ton of times.  It was so magical!

When we first got to Stone Mountain, I was nearly overwhelmed by the gorgeous lights and the great atmosphere.  Lights everywhere and on every building!  Even a place where mistletoe hung in the air for smooches.

The first thing that we did was watch the parade!  The parade strolls down the main walkway in Crossroads was really cute.  Plenty of characters to dance with and even the Jolly Old Elf himself and the Snow Angel made their way down the path.  This really made it feel like Christmas is upon us even though it’s the beginning of November still.

We enjoyed the shows and especially the new Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas 4D.  Kids thought it was great!  Our favorite show was Toyriffic!  It is definitely a must!

The most amazing part of the trip was the Singalong Christmas Train.  It’s always fun to ride the train at Stone Mountain Park.  Having a singalong on the Christmas Train was super special and my husband and I were having as much fun as the kids were!  I would definitely recommend bundling up and perhaps bringing along a blanket for this ride.  During the train ride, you stop once for a special “Gift”.  The “Gift” was amazing.  There is a story-teller that tells the real story of Jesus’ birth!  It was so refreshing to hear about the birth of Jesus without being watered down or flaky.  Big kudos to Stone Mountain Park for keeping it real!  Lights would light up during the story as well.  Breath-taking.

After our train ride, we ventured over for a funnel cake and some hot cocoa.  It’s conveniently located across from the train depot for easy access 😉  Definitely a must to get warmed up after the ride.

Santa says his favorite vacation spot is at Stone Mountain Park.  He is having a nice relaxing vacation before he hits the busiest time of year.  It was great to see the big guy!

The end of the night wraps up with the Snow Angel flying overhead and then snow falling right below her.  The kids thought this was pretty neat!  Finally, fireworks closed everything out.  It was a short show, but enough for the kids to be happy.

I think we have found a new Christmas family tradition!  This was so much fun and really got us into the spirit!

My family and I had the pleasure of staying at Crown Reef Resort in Myrtle Beach this past weekend.  We had an absolute blast!  It has recently refurbished rooms that are beautiful and they are working on the rest of the refurbishing details in the next few months.

Crown Reef Resort has 514 guest rooms and suites with views of the Atlantic Ocean.  The rooms range between a Queen Efficiency and a Queen Jacuzzi Suite!  With room for up to 8, this hotel is perfect for a larger family like ours.  The room we had was the Queen Deluxe Suite.  Our suite had a full kitchen including a full size refrigerator, stove, microwave, and sink.  All basic cooking utensils were available as well!  Cooking from our own hotel room saved us a ton of money by not dining out.  For breakfast, we made things such as cereal, bagels, and eggs, lunches were sandwiches, and for dinner we made quesadillas, sausage, salads, and veggies.

Each morning, we could wake up, eat breakfast and walk right down to the beach.  We would stay and play for hours!  Once the beach got too hot, we headed back up to the watersides and pools in the back of the hotel.

During the day at the beach, there are lifeguards available if we needed help and also flags showing the rating of the water.  One day while we were there, the lifeguards wouldn’t let anyone go in the water more than waist deep because of how rough the tide was due to the upcoming storms.  I really appreciated having them nearby.

Crown Reef Resort features the longest oceanfront lazy river in Myrtle Beach at 575 feet, indoor and outdoor pools, watermark with 2 four story tall waterslides, hot tubs, kiddie pools, and a silly sub with slide for the little kids.  I admit that I had fun going down the slides as well!

We had planned to stay at the hotel some but also venture out to local attractions but we were having so much fun at the hotel, we only left once during our stay!  When we go back next time, we will plan on staying longer.

At Crown Reef Resort, they have Swirls Ice Cream Shop, where you can purchase ice cream cones made with Breyer’s ice cream!  They also have a eatery called Grab N Go that has easy to grab snacks, breakfast, and lunch items.  For lunch and dinner, they have the Loco Gecko.  This was a pretty cool restaurant that offers everything from fried pickles to pizza and salads.  Everything looked and smelled great!

In between Loco Gecko and Swirls, you can find a game room, which is perfect when it’s too hot to play outside or the kids just need a break from the water.  Lots of games from motorcycles to air hockey.

I definitely recommend staying at Crown Reef Resort if you need an affordable family vacation.  They have fall rates from $49/night and the watersides and pools will be open all year!  Huge thanks to Crown Reef Resort for inviting us on this trip and we cannot wait to come back!

Wow! I had no idea that Busch Gardens offered something special for Christmas. Being a Busch Gardens ambassador this year, I’m learning a ton of new things and am super excited about returning again this year. I think we will definitely plan on taking our trip during the Christmas season! If you are interested in seeing our adventures on our last trip, click here.

Busch Gardens® Tampa’s Christmas Town™ , the Bay area’s biggest Christmas celebration, is returning this year and is now included with any annual pass, Fun Card or daily admission to the park.

“Since 2012, Busch Gardens has offered the ultimate Christmastime experience for families, and we’re excited to continue that tradition again in this year,” said Park President Jim Dean. “And with all of this Christmas fun included with any annual pass, Fun Card or daily admission, all guests receive an even greater value during their visit. We’ve created a season-long celebration unlike any other event our guests have ever seen – the kind of Christmas fun only Busch Gardens can provide.”

This year’s event will transform the park into a nighttime holiday wonderland of wintery surprises and all things Christmas, filling guests’ senses with seasonal sights, sounds and flavors. Guests can look forward to special entertainment, live music, festive treats, holiday shopping and over a million twinkling lights around every turn.

Christmas Town is open 23 select dates from Nov. 28 through Dec. 31. Guests can experience all of the Christmas celebrations throughout the day, and park closing times will range from 8pm to 9pm throughout the event. Visit ChristmasTown.com for dates, times and event details.

Christmas Town will also offer some magnificent new opportunities for groups looking to book a unique holiday party. For details, call the Busch Gardens Events Team at 813-987-5523.

Be the first to know about new events, special deals and future announcements by following the park’s blog at BuschGardensTampaBlog.com, or “Like” the Busch Gardens Facebook page, and follow @buschgardens on Twitter and Instagram.