November 30, 2010

Thanksgiving Weekend Adventures...

We are in the process of rearranging the wireless internet connection at my moms house, and of course by 'we' I mean Jasey.  Everything is hooked up and working again, except for our computer which has a broken wireless card, we don't have the cash to fix it right now so we need a cable to hook it up, the one we have isn't long enough.  Anyway I am on Moms computer which means I don't have easy access to my pictures at the moment.  But I want to share the wonderful time we had for Thanksgiving.
We left early Tuesday morning to head up to Atlanta to visit with Marshall and Deri.  We were supposed to leave at midnight but not one of us remembered to set an alarm so Jasey and I woke up at 2:30, luckily I had already packed up the car.  We woke up mom got the kids ready and were out the door at 3:00, not bad.  Jasey, wonderful guy that he is, drove the whole way there so mom and I could sleep.  Stopped for breakfast a little more then half way, after the kids woke up and arrived in Atlanta at about 1:00.
We stayed at the Homewood Suites, which was right around the corner from Marshall's place, walking distance away.  We really liked the hotel, comfortable room, coffee and tea service all day and breakfast every morning.  Not having to make breakfast every morning, now that is a vacation to me!
It was such a relaxing time.  Tuesday we went to Marshall's and just hung out.  Wednesday we went to breakfast at Rise-N-Dine, did some shopping and after Deri got out of work we all headed to the Georgia Aquarium.  It was so much better then I was expecting it to be, not the Aquarium really but the time we spent there.  Ryan was happy in her stroller looking around, AJ wasn't throwing temper tantrums.  I was thinking that it would be pushing it if we were there for about 2 hours but we ended up being there for over 3 hours, it was awesome, such a great time!
Thursday of course was Thanksgiving.  Patrick drove over from Athens to spend the day and join us for dinner, which was nice since we hadn't seen him since Nana's funeral in May.  Everyone helped out with dinner prep, decorating and drink fetching.  It was the first year in about 10 years that I didn't cook Thanksgiving dinner and I was very thankful for that!
Friday was another full day.  We all piled in the car again and headed to Dahlonega, GA, about an hour north of Atlanta, to go hiking.  In Dahlonega we found an Irish pub to have a little lunch and drinks, walked around the town square, enjoyed the holiday decorations and got some chocolate.  Deri claims it was the best hiking trip she's ever been on!  From there we moved on to our our first actual reason for heading here.  Mining, we stopped at a place where you could mine for jewels or pan for gold, we decided to mine.  So they gave us buckets of dirt and showed us to the mining troughs, or whatever they are called.  We grabbed our screen boxes and went sifting trying to keep our hands warm, the water was freezing!  AJ and Ryan played, Deri checked out the donkeys, Jasey took pictures, mom and Marshall had a stone mining assembly line going and I stuck to my own bucket, I'm like that.  We laughed a lot and had a good time but here was one more stop before we headed back to Atlanta.  It was on to Amicalola Falls State Park.  We drove to the top of the falls had a look around and took a few pictures, then Jasey, mom, Deri and the kids drove back to the bottom and started walking up the trail.  Marshall and I stayed at the top and headed down the trail, I use the term 'trail' loosely here.  To climb down next to the falls you are walking down steps attached to the side of the mountain, a total of 604 to be exact.  The first 425 steps are all twisty and turny and crazy to look down on from the top, it's all sharp turns and weird angles.  There are usually no more then 2 to 8 steps at a time before you hit a tiny landing (sometimes barely enough room for one foot) and turn to go down more steps.  When you finish the first 425 you get to cross a bridge that goes right over the bottom of the main fall, it is an amazing site to look up and see.  Then you have to finish the rest of the steps, these not nearly as steep and finally a pathway that leads to the pool at the base of the fall.  Though don't be fool the pathway is not a whole lot easier then the steps, especially when it's rainy and the path is covered with a layer of dead leaves.  Marshall and I met up with everyone else on their way up, took some pictures together and headed back to the car for our ride back to Atlanta.  The next day we packed up, checked out and headed to Marshall and Deri's to have a Thanksgiving Leftovers Brunch before getting on the road.  Potato pancakes, eggs, turkey and mimosas, mmmmm.
I drove the first leg heading home and hit most of the traffic then, which luckily wasn't much.  Jasey finished the trip home and we got in at 11:30 at night.  It was quite a shock getting out of the car to muggy mid 70's weather considering when we got int he car that morning it was a crisp, clear 32 degrees.
All in all we had a great time and I was so thankful to be able to spend such a relaxing holiday with all the people that mean the most to me.

I will get some pictures up as soon as I can!

1 comment:

  1. We've camped at that State Park before - lots of fun!

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