Of course the end goal was for Eleanor to see Grandpa again. Last time she saw him she was just 3 months old. Now at 11 months she is super interactive and had a good time showing him some love. I think he enjoyed himself as well.
We got down there around 9 pm on Thursday. Eleanor was wide awake when we got there. She'd pretty much been stuck in a car seat most of the day so it was not like she'd spent a lot of energy. Of course Grandpa and Grandma were a lot more fun than the back of the road signs that she saw all day long so she instantly took a shine to them cheesing it up for about an hour that night (and all the rest of the weekend). She even showed off her "look at you sideways peek-a-boo" face which instantly multiplied her cuteness factor by a million.Friday we went to Blue Ridge and shopped around. Blue Ridge is not quite as nice as Nashville, Indiana but it has potential. The positive thing that it has going for it is the Scenic Train that you can ride on that takes people from Blue Ridge to Macaysville, GA/Copperhill, TN (Essentially the same town). People will get on at one of the two spots and take the train back and forth and shop while there.
It was on Friday that we ran into some old friends of ours. (Watch the slide show to pick them out. You'll probably be suprised as the 4 of us were).
Friday afternoon my bro Jason and his wife Suzy got in. We had dinner and pretty much crashed after that.
Saturday started out with a quick visit to the local WALSMART (I Love Wals-mart) to pickup a Baby Backpack. Then it was off to the Amacolola Falls for a hike/climb and then some lunch. We stopped back in Blue Ridge to visit and then went to our Uncle Butch and Aunt Pats house to see their work in progress.
Sunday Morning was Easter and we drove down to the North Side of Atlanta to attend Easter Service at NorthPoint Church. We visited our Friend Luke down there and sat with him during service. He currently is and associate sound engineer there. He was running the Easter Service that morning. We even got the backstage tour. Needless to say with all the sound tech stuff there I was totally geeking out and having flash backs to my college days doing that at church.
We at a late lunch with him at The Cheesecake Factory. We ordered our lunches and I ordered a "Side of Macaroni" for Eleanor to eat. When they brought her food out they brought "FRIED MACARONI". Uh, this is not what we ordered. . .
We bought a cheesecake for dinner that night and went home to have Easter dinner with the parentals. All in all it was a good day. That night Angela and I enjoyed the fireplace at the guest cabin. I sure do miss having a fire place.
Monday Jason and Suzy left. We stayed that extra day to chill out. Eleanor slept a lot (she had a very busy weekend you know). She was so exhausted she fell asleep in Grandpa's arms. I did some PC stuff for them and we just hung out all day. That night we packed our stuff and had another fireplace evening together as we watched "Wild Hogs". I'd give it a B-. It was better than I expected and not a DVD that I would just go out and buy. Maybe if I find it used for a good price at the video store (or if it's one of those $5.99 movies at work one day).
Tuesday morning we got up and on the road around 9:45 am. We promptly returned back to the house to give them back the DVD's we borrowed (no broadcast or cable TV at the guest cabin, just a Tv and DVD player) and took off again around 10 am. I took the backway off the mountain that I had actually found the previous day. Some of the twists and corners are a bit more intense going that way but the road was well graded and covered with rock.
We didn't make as many stops on the way back. We did stop for lunch at O'Charlies north of Knoxville. Funny thing about our lunch plans. On both the way down and up we planned on eatting at Ryan's Steakhouse BUT apparently Ryans is a defunct chain in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennesee and GA. Every time we stopped where the GPS said one was we just found an empty building that looked a lot like a Ryan's. . . Ryan's Steakhouse was going to be the stop for lunch on the way down initially since they had a buffet and we could feed Eleanor veggies and stuff for free. We ended up going to the Ponderosa instead ("We don't charge for Midgets" is what they guy who we paid at the Ponderosa said to us...)
So back to the return trip. We stopped at Panera for Dinner and then got to IKEA around 7:30 pm and stayed till 9 pm. THESE STORES ARE FREAKIN HUGE AND VERY AWESOME! If we hadn't made this stop we probably would have been home by 9pm but we didn't get home until just before 11 pm.
All in all we had a great trip. It was a lot of fun and great to see the family down south.
