I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but we like to travel. A lot. Give us a decent airfare, and we’ll think up any excuse to go to a city. Or town. Or hamlet. Or almost-third worldish country. Really, we’ll go anywhere to see how people elsewhere live.
We’re also hoping that we are raising two little men who will enjoy traveling as much as we do. Not sure there’s much we can do to foster a love for travel other than dragging them all over the US with us, so that’s the approach we’re taking. When the boys were nearing their first birthday, we decided that each year we’d take them somewhere new for their birthday. Keith and I already have a similar tradition, where we take a short vacation together instead of buying each other Christmas presents. We love this tradition since it allows us to spend time together and see new places, and while we’ll probably still give the boys gifts for their birthday, we wanted to start this tradition for them. The plan is to explore further and further away from Atlanta as they get older, and Keith even has some grand visions of them camping in the Okefenokee. Note I said THEM, not US. Momma will be staying with Sessy in Savannah this weekend, thank you very much. I don’t do swamps.
Since the boys aren’t quite aware of where we go, and we decided to not go very far, and we rented a cabin in the north Georgia Mountains. It was a cold and gray weekend, which seemed appropriate to spend in the mountains in a wooden cabin, no?
So we packed up and headed just shy of Blue Ridge & Elijay. As we unpacked, the boys explored and did what boys do…find cars and play, naturally.
And sit atop furniture that contains those cars.
And we did some back porch sittin’. Grady loves the rockers.
When it came time to hop in the car to go see a waterfall, the boys took off running after something.
Up the dirt road they went.
And then it became apparent what they were chasing after, I couldn’t help but chuckle. Dogdog! See the little dark speck at the top of the dirt road? Someone in another cabin let their little Chihuahua out for a potty break, and BigEars [as I called him] came near our cabin only to be chased back to his cabin by to eager little boys. DOGDOG, COME, DOGDOG! Echoed over the foothills as Keith and I chased the boys. Or, Keith chased the boys and I laughed and took pictures.
Keith and I are easily distracted, and while we were trying to stop the boys from getting into mud on the sides of the road, Keith noticed the frost line on the mountains. See below. Pretty, no? And pretty cold.
Grady was not happy with their DOGDOG excursion being cut short.
We had a fun ride to the waterfall, and along the way saw lots of cows. MOOOOOO-wah says a cow, according to the boys. MOOOoooo. And horses. Hortses. HOH-ses.
See? A cow!
Several fields of farm animals later, we arrived where we wanted to be.
We [Keith, he’s really the brains of the operation] figured the walkways up to the waterfall would be frozen over, so we drove to the top to enjoy the view down.
Not sure if Grady understood what “stay on the sidewalk” meant, but he did so.
Appears that Keith did not know what it meant.
The walkways were indeed frosty.
So we looked at the creek that turns into the waterfall. Wah-tah! OOOhhhhh. Wah-tah.
I have an overwhelming fear of the boys falling into water. Fall from a piece of furniture, no problem. Fall down stairs? Can handle that. But into water? Sends my heart into palpitations. Consequently, most of the pictures of the boys near the railing have me following them with outstretched arms.
Yeah, let Momma hold you, G-baby. Much better.
Or, stand between Dada’s legs.
Here’s the view, and why I was so terrified.
Once we were cold enough, we hopped back into the car and drove to the bottom to get one more final glimpse of the waterfall.
And so we come to the first of a few random sidenotes. SIDENOTE: Grammy is a Reece. As in, her maiden name is Reece. It was an option for a baby name for us, had we ended up with triplets. [pretty sure Karen’s heart just had palpitations. Dodged that bullet, huh?]. On the drive to Amicalola we noticed the Reece name all over the place. See.
Neat, we thought.
Looking at waterfalls will built up an appetite, and we saw several signs for the Pink Pig near the cabin, so that’s where we headed next. Not gonna lie, Keith and I felt that there was a 50/50 chance that the Pink Pig is either BBQ, or a local strip club with a Miss Piggy theme [to each his own, people].
It was the former, thankfully, and we partook in some decent food. Decent. Not great. The funniest part of the meal is when Cole pointed at the menu with the logo [above] on it and said COW! I replied with “no, that’s a pig. Pig”. He squinted his eyes and looked at me like someone needs to learn her animals, and with the same teacher-ish tone told me COW, COOOOW. Hahaha.
Speaking of learnin' things, this brings me to the second sidenote: At some point in the weekend we also stopped at a local park, but couldn’t play for long because it was icy and muddy. The playground was next to a pool, and I couldn’t help but notice an error on one of their signs. Bonus points if you can find it. Hint: In one sign the word “personal” is used properly, in another, it is not.
We actually didn’t have the camera with us when we stopped at the park, but this was so funny to us that we doubled back the second day to get the picture.
Near the park is a choo-choo! We stopped and let the boys run around near, and on, the choochoo. The choochoo does run, and when the boys are older and it’s choochoo season [March-December, if you’re wondering], we’ll go back for a ride. I think that will make for a fun family outing, and even better if we can get some cousins to come join us…hint…hint…
Grady loved the choochoo.
Cole loved being held. If Keith had angled the shot just a little to the left, you would have seen the “stay off the engine” sign. Grady lives on the edge.
Now, if you ever see any of our pictures, and you notice in the progression of the blogpost that there are more and more pictures of babies being held, [as opposed to walking by themselves] it’s a good sign that boys were getting cranky and parents were starting the mental countdown to bedtime. I should say that “cranky” is very relative, and compared to one year ago, the boys hardly get cranky at all. A little whiney, sure, but overall they’re mostly pleasant. When they’re not sassing you for not knowing the difference between a cow and a pig.
After walking, and playing, and seeing wah-tah, we headed back and sat by the fire. HOT! HOT! And just like that, it was bedtime and the end of a very fun weekend with our boys. Next year, we’re thinking Disney World.
A final sidenote: When it’s freezing outside, and you let your husband talk you into skinny dipping in the hot tub on the cabin’s back porch after the kids go to bed, it’s very important that you do at least one, if not all three of the following things: 1) take your clothes outside with you, 2) make sure the door doesn’t lock behind you, or 3) know where the cabin owners keep a spare key. Thankfully Keith knew #3, or else this blog entry would have had an entirely different tone.
Happy birthday boys! We look forward to many Boys Birthday Trips so we can explore this world together.
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