to Helen and Blue Ridge, GA

Our stay in Dillard was beautiful. I left the last post with the happiness of two children running around a new hotel room like crazy wild banchees (what are banchees anyway). Then the unhappiness started. Little man isn't used to staying up much past 8:00 and the craziness was going on past 9. So, when daddy got back, I put him in charge of putting little man to sleep, because my attempts were futile. It was then my responsibility to keep little miss quiet and still so she would go to sleep soon after he did. That is certainly one hard aspect of hotel living: no separate rooms. Jim did a fine job walking around outside, trying to avoid annoying our neighbors on the one side of us, and finally got him to sleep. Katherine followed suit soon after. It was a very busy, full and long day.

The next morning was when it really got hard. (And try not to laugh or roll the eyes too far back, those of you with more than two kids). Jim left early that morning for whitewater rafting and left me the uber-responsibility of feeding both munchkins, packing up all our stuff, loading it into the car and checking out. Ugh, just typing it conjures up not-so-good memories. (And in his defense, he would have had the whole car packed but we needed 90% of it that morning). So, without going into detail, Nathan was extremely upset with me by the time we left, which was his nap time. It was hard and thank goodness L, one of our friends that we met up there, offered to feed Nathan his bottle to calm him down.

Whoo hoo! On to the next adventure. We headed to Helen, GA. The Helen, GA website uses the description, "Mountain Beauty with a touch of Bavaria" and gives a little history on how it started: In 1968, local businessmen met to discuss what could be done to improve their town. They approached a nearby artist friend, who had been stationed in Germany. He sketched the buildings, added gingerbread trim, details and colors to the buildings, giving an Alpine look to the entire town. In January 1969, business owners and local carpenters began turning ideas into reality. Now all downtown stores have been renovated and many buildings and cobblestone alleyways added. Faces of buildings were painted with scenes of Bavaria and North Georgia, mirroring the migration of early settlers.
In one of the stores, an article went on to further explain that all the changes happened before Government subsidies, commission meetings, zoning regulations, city permits or Associations to deal with.Thankfully, Nathan slept the whole way there, Katherine was enthralled with a video she's seen at least 23 times, the rain was gentle and sounded like music, our car was quiet inside, handled the winding mountain roads like a commercial and the view was spectacular. I was tempted to take a picture of a covered bridge, but it was raining. I still should have. Helen was a nice stop. Enough to let the munchkins stretch out their legs, grab a bite to eat, take a potty break, change some diapers and head off to Blue Ridge. Some sights along the way.Again, timing is sometimes EVERYTHING! Nathan and Katherine both slept on the way to Blue Ridge. The view, again, was awesome, car finally quiet after I convinced Katherine that all she needed to do was just rest her eyes, not fall asleep. Our trusty Garmin, who I've nicknamed Rhoda (thanks Mom), is very nice to have along. This coming from a tried and true, card-carrying, trying-to-get-my-license-in-Surveying, blue-blooded, registered and paid the fees, annoyingly large map lover. The display screen needs to be quite a bit bigger than the 3"x2" though, and preferably one that behaves like a hologram. It appears only when you need it then disappears.

So we get into Blue Ridge, our hotel was beautiful and I wonder-womaned it by unloading the whole car in two trips with a luggage cart and two children. Nathan was excited to ride on top of all the luggage strapped safely inside his car seat and Katherine just wanted to pull along her princess suitcase that rolls (packed with baby doll stuff of course).

We had some more crazy wild banchee moments, new hotel room of course, and waited for daddy. We met our friends at a little restaurant on the Toccoa river and did our best to enjoy their company inbetween dealing with a busy 3-year-old who'd been strapped in a car seat half the day and a pre-walker that had started to cut 3, yes I said THREE, teeth while we were up there. I shared with our friends, that it's at times like these that I feel I'm being misrepresented. What do you mean, Kel? Oh, some other super-human parents might be able to do this, but neither Jim nor I have the ability to have a productive adult conversation when:

• fists full of hair are methodically being ripped from a scalp (mainly mine)
• a toddler hopped up on boredom is doing gymnastics on the rickety wooden chair causing herself to almost fall off or mutilate a body part
• approximately 52 questions are being asked while I'm trying to talk to another adult, most having to do with if she can take her shoes off
• the pre-walker wants to do nothing more in the whole wide world than climb up on top of the stone hearth and head straight for the soot-lined fireplace protected by a flimsy 'iron curtain' or single-handedly 'take down' the restaurant's audio system by dismantling their satellite radio box
• and neither one of them is interested in keeping their voices below whatever decibel level it is my hair dryer operates at.

Sooooo, we talk to other very interesting and comical adults in shifts. We are a team, but not a team. Our team-playing abilities come in when shifts need to be taken; our lack of team-playing abilities are exhibited in our one-person conversations we have with friends. We used to be able to talk to adults as a husband and wife team. But, as you can imagine, it's been put on hold for who knows how long.

Our first night in Blue Ridge was worst than Dillard. Little dude made it very clear that he doesn't like sleeping anywhere else than his own bed in his room, but this time we were in a hotel on the second floor with neighbors on both sides, above and below us. Not good. The twilight fairy finally spread her sleeping dust in our room and I was single-momming it again the next morning. It went a little smoother because I brought breakfast up to the room and we didn't have to pack up.

We stopped by a park in downtown Blue Ridge, enjoyed the sunshine and tried to rid ourselves of some energy.A true sign of being the second child.
It's getting much harder to get a picture of her when she doesn't want me to.Jim came back right before nap time, we all rested, and then we ate supper with our friends in their cabin. L can cook some grub now. It was delicious and the setting was more kid-friendly. D said I deserved a good shoulder rub so he put "the only thing he learned from the University of Florida" to work on my shoulders. There was not a care in the world during the beat down my shoulders got. Not even Nathan pushing over a beer bottle and wallering in it was enough for me to flinch.

Katherine saw a mountain stream for the first time and got to play in it.There was more craziness in our hotel room that night, but not as bad. Nathan made it even more clear that he was unhappy. I'm afraid if we would have stayed in hotels for a week, it would have progressed to having him committed. I had to get a picture of their favorite place to play in the room. Under the sink. It was like a little fort.The next post is our trip home and stopping at the GA Aquarium.