On the road again

 Well, after a lovely stay in Athens, Georgia, we are hitting the pavement again! We are currently en route to Gatlinburg, TN, where will will visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and stay overnight. We were contemplating going to Asheville, NC, to see the Biltmore Estate, until we found out that admission starts at $65 per person! Ouch! But I am excited to see the Great Smokies and get back into the "mountains."

Our stay in Georgia was lots of fun. We went up to Helen, Georgia, on Friday. Helen is considered to be part of the Appalachians and is near a part of the Appalachian Trail. It is made to look like a Bavarian village.

We did some shopping, ate some lunch, and did the tourist things.

I had the kids all crowd into this little booth for a picture, but Carter noticed a wasps nest inside it (hence the panicked look on his face). So they didn't stay in there long!

We watched a glassblower for a few minutes.

Savannah and I went to take a quick look at the Chattahoochee River.

A pretty little park in Helen.

Herr Friedrich was right at home in the Bavarian atmosphere, being a Schnauzer and all.

On Saturday, LaMar and the kids went to Madison to see the pretty plantation homes and old graveyards. They also went to the UGA botanical gardens. I was needing some down time, so I stayed at Scott and Debbie's and read my book. Needless to say, I didn't get any pictures of their adventures, but here are some that the others took:

This house is on Old Post Road in Madison. Wouldn't that be a perfect address? And the house is even for sale! Only $2.7 million!! I will take two, please.

Here are some beautiful pictures of the botanical gardens that Savannah took:

These pretty photos were taken by Sierra:

Saturday evening, the kids got to ride Scott and Debbie's horses around the pasture for awhile.

This is Savannah on Chief.

This is Sierra on Arizona.

On Sunday, we watched a broadcast of Scott and Debbie's sacrament meeting in the morning and had our own sacrament meeting in the afternoon with Grandpa and Dylan and Jadis on HouseParty. It was a great meeting, and I think we all felt the spirit in great abundance.

After church, LaMar went and picked up his mom and brought her back to Scott and Debbie's house. Debbie, Grandma and I worked on a jigsaw puzzle for awhile, and then Lena and her family, Doyle and his family, and Racheal and her family came over to celebrate Lena's baby's first birthday. It was fun to see all the great- nieces and nephews and how big they are getting! Ashley and her family stopped by for awhile too, and I loved getting to see her for a little while.

After dinner, we went and saw the tree that owns itself in Athens.

Then we drove around a bit, saw the UGA campus and the house that LaMar grew up in, and finally took Grandma home.

And that's it for now! We just crossed into North Carolina and got our first glimpse of the Blue Ridge Mountains. More to come!