The Getaway III 1/2

I just couldn’t keep my eyes open last night long enough to get this last little bit of our trip in, so here it is. I am not going to guarantee how much time I will put into this one, since it’s a beautiful 72 degrees outside and I feel like being out there more than in here.

Wait… I can fix that. Be right back.

***

Du. I’m on a laptop. It works outside just as good as inside!

Okay, now on with the getaway.

After our hike (small hike – but a hike none-the-less), we drove back into the little town of Helen. So cute. Although a big tourist place, it was very personable. It looks like a little town in the hills somewhere in Germany. Kind’a-Sort’a. (I know… I’ve never been to Germany. But I’m German. Does that count?)

Isn’t it just adorable?

And this tree… this tree… I love it. I really love it. I want it. Really. I want to look at it every day. I want it in my front yard. Isn’t it just beautiful? Haah… love it.

We walked to the bridge over the Chattahoochee river. There were neat looking but crowded restaurants on either side of the river. We chose to eat at the Troll Tavern. There was a long wait, and Guy was running low on “fuel” therefore a little grumpy (what’s new), but I thought this was a neat photo (under the bridge) anyway.

Once we got in and got some food in the boys, Guy perked up a bit. But remember, he’s thirteen… it won’t last long!

Harrison wanted to take a ride in the horse and carriage. Of course the oldest brother fussed and poo-pooed it, so I said that Harris and I would enjoy a nice ride by ourselves and all you big guys can just stay here and wait for us!

We SO enjoyed our ride!!

This is Tater. He pulled us through the streets and his driver, Linda, filled us in on lots of little details about the town of Helen and some tips on what restaurants to eat at. I began to wish we had taken this ride before we ate lunch. Oh well, next time we are up there we’ll try the good places she recommended.

We found out that Tater and his colleges operated their carriage service every single day of the year. Wow. Tater used to work on an Amish farm plowing and pulling logs, so this is his semi-retirement job.

Don’t know anything about this little place down the road on the way back to our cabin, but it intrigued me and I know I’d like to learn more about it. Interesting.

Well, after our trip up to the falls, and our lunch and walk around town, we headed back to the cabin and packed up, cleaned up and loaded up. Then headed down towards home.

Great weekend. Great scenery. Great family. Great times. Great memories.

Wish every weekend were that special! Well, maybe not. Then times like this wouldn’t stick out in my mind as much later on… becoming the wonderful memory that I know it will be. Life… can’t have too little, but can’t have too much either.

I’m glad God is in charge… I would find it all hard to balance!

Blessings,

hi-d

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Getaway Part III

After a great first day and an evening of playing games and star-gazing, we woke up to a beautiful Fall morning. Our plan, after coffee and doughnuts, was to go hike up to Anna Ruby Falls nearby.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day.

Wow! Caught a smile on Guy’s face!!

Harris – always eager for a photo opp! Humm, I wonder if he’ll become like Guy when he’s a teenager and scowl at the camera. And yes, as a matter of fact, he is wearing the same clothes he had on yesterday. He packed light. *motherly sigh*

The water was so clear and refreshing.

One of my favorites! And Guy is smiling again! I bribed him with candy. (kidding)

The sun was bright – we were concentrating on keeping our eyes open!

JJ just tries to humors me… and my photography obsession.

***

But Guy is thoroughly sick of  this camera (and it’s operator)! Tee-Hee…

“Guy – stop! Look this way! Oh no… not that way… go back to where you were. Perfect! Okay. Cock your head just a little to the right… yea… a little more… oh, noooo too far. Oh yea, yea. Right there. Now bring your chin down… Yea… okay now… smile. SMILE. SMILE! That’s your best smile? Okay… forget it.” 

“Click.”

 Fun, fun, fun!

He’s fine. Nothing turning 14 can’t cure! (13 was bad for me too.)

It was a pleasant hike and nice to be in so much of God’s creation like that.

On the way back into town we stopped at the lake that these falls go into. The boys didn’t want to get out of the car, so Dave and I walked down a little path to see this:

 

 Those boys missed a great photo opp! 

 It was a beautiful day in my life. Time with my family away from all the “stuff” that home provides. Some of it is highly overrated – I must say. Being out in nature just does something good for the soul. And I want – desire it more often. Take my T.V. – give me a river.

hi-d

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Getaway Part II

After a good Mexican food lunch we stopped at an old mill on the way back to the cabin.

Nora Mill was such a neat little place. Still grinding grain everyday the old-fashioned way, with stones and water for power. Click on the link and read all about the history of the place. fascinating. Then if you want to… order you some grits!!!  

We got to hear all about how this old stone grinder works.

And this one, that was actually grinding as we listened to him.

And out that window is the Chattahoochee River.

Isn’t that pretty?

And of course we had to get some grits and Chattahoochee hot cereal to try. The verdict is in now that we have cooked and eaten some of both. The boys found it hard to get “into” the grits. They are used to eating “regular”, store-bought, processed to death white grits. So the jump to yellow, wholesome, actual ground corn kind’a grits – that have taste  – well, lets just say they are going to have to get used to it! Cuz, I’m hooked!

Oh, and we all loved the Chattahoochee hot cereal. VERY good. They even agreed that it’s better than Cream of Wheat!

Harrison did a good job taking this photo.

We also visited an antique shop across the street where Dave and I bought each other a little something special. I will show you those at a later time. The boys opted to stay in the car, so we didn’t feel like we could spend as much time in that huge place as we would have liked to. Maybe another time when we visit up there.

It was great day!

And maybe tomorrow I can tell you about the next day of our getaway,

hi-d

 

 

 

The Getaway

We were blessed, this past weekend, to be offered a getaway cabin up in the Georgia mountains by a good friend of ours.

It was a beautiful weekend.

And we enjoyed ourselves so much!

Here are some photos of our trip.

 

The Cabin.

The View.

We just missed the color by about a week. But it was still beautiful!

Doughnuts and coffee in the morning – and a good game of Blockus. Does it get anybetter than that?

I just imagined how that hill would have looked with yellow leaves on those bare tree limbs! This is on the way into the little town.

Do you think that little stinker could eat all of that? Me neither.

And he couldn’t!

But in his defense… his big brothers did say they would help him eat that if he got it.

But they were pretty stuffed themselves!

I think they were posing for me, because they did finish their meals. But with no room left to help Harris.

Well, I have much more to share with you of our weekend, however I am fading fast here tonight. So, I’ll get back on this as soon as I can and give you more pictures from the weekend.

Goodnight!

hi-d

 

Yippppeeeee!

I am typing from my new computer!

Alright… I have some things to get used to, and I have to find some stuff that was transferred to this one, but is not visible… to me at least. But I have it… it works and I got all my pictures off the old one!! (Well, I didn’t, but my PC doc did!)

Yaaay!

So, after I get some damn domestic chores done and get the kids into bed, I will get on here and get a decent post made!

Just wanted to let you know that I’m back and will be producing family/kid/school updates soon!

*jumping up and down*

hi-d

It’s almost here…

…and I am SOOOO looking forward to it! I get my new computer tomorrow. It wasn’t ready today, so it will hopefully be done tomorrow.

I have SOOOO many pictures to download off the camera!!

Hope to be back into my blog writing soon. Cuz I miss ya!
hi-d

RIP

I am sad to say that my computer died last night. I didn’t get to witness the event. It was quite done when I arrived to the scene. Not much of a mess. No. I think it went rather quick in its final stages. However, there were signs of some internal problems for quite a few days beforehand.

***RIP – oh ye pain in my a$$ – and yet much desired electrical device.***

Grrrrrr.

I had almost gotten all my photos off of it, but still had three months left to get.

I can only hope that my PC doc. can retrieve them for me. If not… well, lets just say that you may just hear me scream... all the way to where you live!

So… I will get on the old desk top here to check in now and then, but I won’t be “on top of” my blogging for a while.

I think only two of you care… but I will be back as soon as I get it fixed or (cross my fingers) I get a new one.

Didn’t I JUST go through this?

hugs…

hi-d

Just so Ya Know~

The last post with the photo of the swan was purposely made blurry – except for the very center of the picture. I did that. My camera is okay!

Had a few questions about that.

My bad.

I thought it was neat, but maybe not SO much of the blur next time!

Here is another shot of it without any blur done.

And a closeup of the swan (with some blur).

This is a little lake in our area, but not in our neighborhood. (I wish!)

I had not ever seen the swans there before, so felt real lucky to get these photos.

Since my pond is nothing but a big mud pit that attracts frogs and bugs, and the dogs think is a big water bowl, I will have to visit little lakes and ponds like this for a while!

(See how it’s kind’of heart shaped? Not on purpose… but cool – eh?)

Now that the leaves have covered the ground here and it will be cold now… I guess my “work” on the pond will have to wait for the winter to pass.

Life happens.

hi-d

Serenity

hi-d

A Rare Day

It doesn’t happen all the time, but every once in a while we land on a day that just makes me smile.

Everything seems to just line up so nicely.

***

Most of us woke up happy.

I had over thirty minutes of quiet time to myself before anyone else got up.

It was dark and wonderfully rainy all day.

(yep – that’s a good thing for me! I wouldn’t want it every day, but I do love the rainy days.)

We had a great worship time.

The boys did their chores without complaint.

Then they got to work on their assignments while I started lunch.

(Which is our big meal of the day now. At least I am trying it for a while. Dave usually isn’t home for dinner and Darren is always at work in the evenings – so at least we can eat with one of them.)

I had everything I needed to make the meal that Darren had requested. Sweet & sour nutballs and rice.

And before I was done preparing lunch, Darren came up and was able to spend some time with Harrison – helping him with his math and listening to him read.

(This is so important to me since these two don’t interact or see each other very often at all. The 13 year age difference is kind’a rough on their relationship. So this was good for both of them.)

Kiki stayed in her basket while I was cooking.

(This is extremely rare. She must have been very tired or something.)

I even got to sneak a dessert in the oven to bake while we ate lunch.

Yummy Cherry Dump Cake!

Just dump some cans of cherry pie filling into a 9 x 13 and dump a box of cake mix (dry) over the top.

Dot with a cube of butter and bake at 350 for 30 – 40 minutes.

I forgot to take a picture of it when it came out of the oven. But you get the idea.

The boys finished their assignments about the time the food was ready, and we cleared the dinning room (with the new light fixture!) table and ate together in there. (It had been awhile. Since it’s usually just me and the younger boys, we often eat in the living room while I read or we watch Funniest Home Videos.)

They then had their independent reading time while I cleaned up.

About the time that Darren had to go to work, we were all done with school, and the dishes.

So, I got to relax awhile and then get way more things done in the afternoon knowing that I didn’t have to stop to think about making dinner! It’s cereal, quesadillas (sp?) or sandwiches in the evenings now. Anything the boys can do themselves!

The boys also rinsed and put any dishes they dirtied after that in the dishwasher!

(This is extremely rare – but I made a hot pink sign, stuck it in a ziplock baggie and laid it in the sink! It worked! Who knew?)

I even got to download and edit the boys school pictures that I took yesterday.

Sweet.

Except for missing baseball practice (due to the rain) and not forcing myself out to go grocery shopping – it was a great day! Although it kind’of makes me wonder what’s up for tomorrow. Really. I’m a little scared.

hi-d