Atlanta Vacation Part 1

We met Dad and Mom Joyner and Rebecca in Roswell, GA for a wonderful vacation. It was going to be a violin teacher's training conference that lasts eight days, but the class was cancelled for lack of enrollees after we had already booked the vacation rental home. We enjoyed sightseeing instead!

 Lily and Anna were fairly good travelers. It was nice that Atlanta is closer than Kings Mountain.

During our stay Dad rented a mill house built in 1853. Thankfully it had been modernized since then. :-) It was a block away from the covered bridge and the historic Civil War era mill site in Roswell, GA on the Chattahoochee River. Sherman destroyed the mill and shipped the workers north during the Civil War.

 Dad and James took the girls to see it during our first morning in Atlanta while the ladies went to Walmart for groceries.

 They are at an overlook with the covered bridge and the river behind them.

We had the opportunity to see many sights around Atlanta, and the first one on Becca's list was the Coke "Factory." It is really a museum with a miniature coke bottling operation for souvenirs and demonstration purposes. 

 The main hall where you could choose to watch a 3-D movie about Coke, go taste 60 different Coke products, look around a small museum about Coke, see Coke memorabilia, get your picture with the Coke polar bear, tour the safe where the only written copy of the Coke recipe is locked up, or tour the sample Coke bottling factory where the small bottles were made for the guests to take home.

James tried lots of different flavors, Rebecca tried all 60, and I limited myself to the non-caffienated ones that I already liked. :-) I didn't want to harm the baby by drinking something nasty! I thought the samples would be only Coke, but instead they had Sprite and every other Coke product from around the world. The worst tasting one was "Beverly" from Italy. You should have seen James' face after that one!

Becca got her picture on the Coke couch used in Dancing with the Stars (or something like that).

Sample bottles of Coke being bottled in their automated machines.

The outside of the building with a huge Coke bottle.

THE Safe where the recipe was kept. If you crossed the line to get too near it, an alarm would sound.

That evening Dad watched the girls while we took Mom to Agatha's Mystery Dinner Theater downtown. There were only two professional actors, and the rest of the play was performed by the dinner guests. James and I got speaking parts to read from cards at the right time. Poor James' role was to be killed by a dragon. Mine was a sailor so I had to wear the hat. I wasn't allowed to remove it during the dinner either. It was a five-course meal with scenes from the play between courses. It was called Throne of Games. In summary, a lot of people got killed trying to take over the throne. Each time I thought I knew who the murderer was, that actor got killed! It turned out to be a dinner guest that "done it." One of the funniest scenes was another guest who read his lines from his card and kept reading "strike a pose" without a clue. I think he was supposed to act that out! It was funny and a great time was had by all.

Growing Girls

A random "good morning" picture of Anna

And good morning from Lily too!

One rainy day Lily asked for a cup.  I knew what she wanted to do, she wanted to play in the water running off the roof. Anna got to try it out too. A great time was had by all.

Anna has started to say "uh oh" and pull this face. It is pretty funny.

James got a desert craving and made chocolate-dipped peanut butter crackers the other day. The girls enjoyed watching and sampling as soon as the chocolate hardened.

Anniversary Day Trip to the Gardens

For James and my fourth wedding anniversary, we drove to Belingrath Gardens and enjoyed the beauty of the flowers. I had never been, and I loved it! 

The rose garden was huge and amazing. I enjoyed smelling the roses with my super-sensitive pregnancy-induced sense of smell.

A pond in the rose garden

One of the hothouses

The Belingrath Gardens home was fun to tour. His fortune was made by bottling and selling Coke from the 1930s through World War II. She collected porcelain figurines, and had 15 sets of china and four dining rooms! The house was lovely, but nowhere near the scale of the Biltmore. :-)

A view of the house from the river.

A lion statue in the gardens

The flower-lined walk beside the great lawn

One of the beautifully landscaped ponds in the gardens

The water feature beside the house

James' Grandmother, Grandma Damewood, came to visit her daughters so we got to go to the Smother's house to see her.

Grandma Damewood wrote a book just for Lily about her name. It is precious! It is about Lily asking herself, "who could love a lily?" then talking to the frog that loved the lily pad, the hummingbird that loved the tiger lily, the bees that loved the lily of the valley flowers and then she remembers the Easter Lily and Jesus' resurrection. Then she runs to her Mama who says, "I love my Lily." That is extra sweet because I do say that to Lily all the time.

Lily got to sit on the Smother's horse and go in the chicken house behind her. She loves seeing the chickens!

The other week we had all of the family over to tell everyone that we were expecting our third baby in December. This is all of the current cousins on the couch at our house. There are three more babies on the way too!

Gulf Breeze Zoo Trip

We got to go to the zoo in Gulf Breeze April 3rd. Everyone but especially Lily enjoyed it so much!

The goat got up close and personal.

We got to ride the train around the grounds to see the gorillas and zebras and elephants

A sleeping raccoon. Lily urgently requested that we get a picture of it, so we did!

We got to go in a budgie-feeding area where they would eat seeds from your stick.

Lily loved that!

Anna tried to touch a bird, but it wisely scooted out of reach.

James was Mr. Bird Man with up to five birds on him at once!

NC Vacation

We traveled to NC to see Grandma and Grandpa Joyner and Aunt Becca in the middle of March. It was fun to see my old haunts. I got to go to the Mary Jo's Cloth Store, Mom's tax office, and World Wide's office where I was a secretary for five years.

But that Tuesday on the way back to Mom's house from WWNTBM, Lily threw up and started the whole family on a nasty flu bug epidemic. Everyone in the combined household came down with it except James. The night I had it the worst was one very long night. :-) The girls continued to throw up at least once every other night for the next month. It was a bad one!

In Dad and Mom's back yard. NC has mountains!

One day during a break in the sickness, James and I hiked Crowder's Mountain. I was feeling weak still and wondered if I would make it. I made it up and back though!

We sat at the top of the mountain and used the excellent cell phone reception to play Hay Day for awhile. :-)

The girls traveled to NC well in Emily and Steve's borrowed new mini-van.

The Baines came to see us one night.

We played a super-quick game of Catan before the rest of the family had to leave. Kristen went to Mary Jo's with us and caught the flu bug.

All smiles days before the horrible sickness struck Aunt Becca down.

Anna enjoyed playing at Chickfila on the way home from NC.

Random March Pictures

Emily called me up one morning asking if I wanted to walk on the Heritage Trail. That was fun!

Emily babysat the girls for me while I did eight errands one Thursday

The girls love their swings!

Random picture of me