Ave Maria Grotto- Cullman

Saturday we took a day trip to Cullman. Believe me we saw all that Cullman had to offer. We ate lunch at All-Steak (yummy!!) where I proceeded to drop my expensive sunglasses(the only expensive pair I have ever owned) into a hole behind our booth that might as well have been the Grand Canyon. After several different attempts to retrieve them, we were successful with some kind of long handled squeegee and the little boy at the next booth climbed under the table and grabbed them for me so that started us out with a bang!

Our next stop was Ave Maria Grotto which for those of you who don't know is a monastery/catholic school. There is a candle shoppe that sells the candles made by the monks. Yes, we are talking real monks who walk around in brown hooded capes. Anyway, One of the monks has made it his life's-work to create all of these miniature statues of real-life places and events. There is a little Bethlehem that depicts Jesus' birth, a huge cavern that is carved out of the side of a cliff. It is amazing how much attention he paid to the details. He used everything from broken glass to seashells to decorate and these are a few pictures from our trip.

First of all our tourist trip wouldn't have been complete without Mikey wearing his tourist shorts that I bought him just for the trip. Is this not the cutest plaid print you've ever seen. The only thing that would've made it better is if I could've found these shorts in the boys' size and they could've been three-of-a-kind

This is a picture of Sam with his sucker that he was licking on the whole time we walked through the exhibit. Of course he didn't proceed to drop it on the ground and have it covered in dirt, to which I absolutely did not attempted to blow it off to no avail. Of course I didn't then go on to lick the dirt off myself to prevent him from having a meltdown in what seemed to be such a peaceful and beautiful place. Of course I didn't do any of those things. And no, I am not still cleaning the dirt from my teeth. *( just kidding about that last part)

The boys had a good time checking out all of these neat things that were just their size

This section was ancient Greece and Rome and it was really amazing. There was a tiny road that went throughout the whole thing. I mean it was all so tiny, yet so detailed.



Inside this window is where the manger scene from Jesus' birth was recreated. It was really pretty b/c there were stained-glass windows and the sun shone through so beautifully.
Notice him happily sucking on that sucker...




The boys were really starting to wind down at this point...look how they are in such a daze... I will admit though, it's easier to get pictures when they are in this state

I didn't get as good a picture of this cave as I thought I did but it was really impressive.

I guess I was too focused on tourist Mikey...

The boys were trying to climb the sculptures. We had to nip that real quick. I didn't want any Catholic monks coming after us.

So all in all this stop on our trip was fun. I probably wouldn't drive all the way to Cullman just for that, but it is definetly worth stopping by if you are passing through.