georgia

we went to georgia at the beginning of october. jd served his mission there and i'd never been. sophie did extremely well with all the traveling. we had originally bought tickets to fly into birmingham, alabama and then drive (3 hours) to atlanta because it was cheaper. what were we thinking? luckily we realized in time, got a credit for our first tickets, and bought new ones that flew right to atlanta (with a plane change). i decided i didn't care how much more it cost, my sanity was worth more than hours on the plane and then 3 hours in the car. unfortunately we had to wake soph up at 4:30am to go to the airport. she did really well until we got to atlanta. she completely lost it. we still had to ride 2 trains, get our bags and our rental car. there were about 25 people in line in front of us for rental cars. yikes. after what seemed like forever with a hungry, tired, crying baby we made it to our car and soph passed out after like 30 seconds. ahhh.

for some reason these pictures loaded in backwards order. oh well.

our last day there we kind of took it easy. we took a little car tour around alpharetta, milton, and roswell. we toured an old plantation in roswell, had some lunch at panera, and headed for the airport.

this is on our car tour. the weather was beautiful except the last 2 days when it rained.

roswell, georgia

smith family plantation

this is the smith family plantation. the grounds were beautiful. the family moved to roswell from savannah with a few other families and settled roswell. we didn't actually get to go in the house for the tour because we didn't end up having enough time, so i'm sure we missed some of the history, but we walked around the grounds and gathered what we could. apparently the family was really friendly to their slaves and at one point owned over 40 slaves. it was so interesting to see what their life was like.

back of the house. 

this is the cooks house. the original one had burned down and they reconstructed it. 

i couldn't believe how many different out buildings there were on the grounds. 

front of the house. 

one of the days it was raining we went to downtown atlanta and took sophie to the children's museum. we were trying to find something fun for her to do since we did a lot of driving and she was not a fan. we didn't get to see too much of downtown since it was raining and we didn't have umbrellas or anything. we did walk from the children's museum to underground atlanta mall and saw a few things along the way. after the museum we went out for some good southern bbq. mmm!

atlanta, georgia

children's museum

the children's museum was pretty similar to the one at the gateway, but it had some different stuff and it was nice to be able to let sophie run around a play for a while.

sweet outfit, huh? she loved the tap shoes! 

more scenery. it was so beautiful. we had hoped the leaves would be changed, but it wasn't quite cold enough yet. we did a lot of driving around and checking out places jd had served. 

 sophie thought our bed was the greatest thing. she was going crazy jumping all over.

we spent one night walking around downtown roswell. it was such a cute little town. a lot of the houses on this main street had been turned into to little businesses. all of the businesses were decorated for halloween. it was such a fun place to walk around.

dawsonville, georgia

outlets and apple farm

our first full day there we were very busy. we went to cleveland, georgia and took sophie to the babyland general hospital where cabbage patch babies are born. that was the cutest thing ever. we saw a pamphlet for it at our hotel and we kind of made fun of it at first. sophie carried it around for a while and when we actually looked at it, it looked like a lot of fun. we thought sophie would like it and she loved it! then, we went to this little swiss town, helen. it was in the mountains and it was fun walking around. soph slept through most of that town, but woke up in time to play at the awesome park. on the way back from there we stopped and shopped at the awesome outlets in dawsonville. this my favorite part. loft AND pottery barn outlet. if only i had more money to spend and way to get all the stuff i wanted home. across the street from the outlets was this cute apple farm. i wish we had gone there earlier because it was so much fun. unfortunately it started getting dark and they were closing so we only got to go a few things. sophie rode the cow train, jd and sophie went down a huge inflatable slide, and then we got apple spice donuts. we were all worn out at the end of the day.

 soph and jd coming down the huge slide.

this place was so cute. they had another roll of hay that looked like a spider. 

 seriously, check out that slide. it was like 40 or 50 feet tall. the guy told us it cost $18,000! yikes.

 sophie on the cow train. she loved it! i thought she might get a little scared, but she had fun.

the apple farm.

 helen, georgia

little swiss town

 mommy's turn going down the slide. i had to prove i was actually on this trip. all the pictures are of sophie.

the only picture of both of us. 

 the chattahoochee river went right through the town. we didn't get to see as much of the chattahoochee as we wanted. we were saving it until the end, but then it rained. next time maybe?

babyland general hospital

cleveland, georgia

(just remember these are in backwards order)

the ladies that worked at this place were so cute and nice. i loved their southern accents and they all LOVED sophie. as soon as we walked in, the lady at the front desk asked if she could take her picture for their facebook page and then she showed us a doll that looked just like her. it was so cute, but we ended up getting a baby doll instead. sophie picked the one with purple eyes and it was a girl! she named her baby hadley (just like her friend marli's little sister). she gets so excited when she sees any cabbage patch doll now.

the baby came with a bottle and she kept telling us she needed to feed her baby. she was so funny and wanted to bring her everywhere. 

she may have snuck a little bit of the bottle too. and maybe she still does...

feeding baby on the porch. they had a beautiful porch that surrounded the whole house. 

oh, just having some tea and toast with a cabbage patch. 

we got to see a cabbage patch baby get born and it was so cute. the "nurse" was assisting mother cabbage with the delivery. they had all these funny little saying about how she was dilated to 10 leaves, she got an easyotomy, and needed a dose of tlc. it was super cheesy, but the kids loved it. after the baby was born, they took her to the nursery, weighed her, wrapped her up, and then let the kids hold her. they even let the kids name her. i think her name was sophia mariah. so of course we had to get a picture of sophie holding her. or poking her in the eye, you decide.

 the nursery

baby getting born. sophie also calls her baby "baby get born" because she "watched" it get born.

 all the babies in their cabbage leaves. the bunny bees in the tree above pollinate the cabbage leaves and decide if the baby is a boy or girl.

this place was amazing. they had tons and tons and tons of cabbage patch dolls. everywhere. and they were all up for adoption. they even had some that were worth thousands of dollars. and a big store you have to walk through to leave. we planned on buying soph a doll, but we didn't plan on how much she would love running around and playing there. 

giant cabbage leaf chair 

this is the huge house/plantation the baby hospital was in. it was so pretty. they even hold events in this special room there.

babyland general hospital

of course we did other fun things that we didn't get pictures of...

on our first night there, we went out to dinner with a friend who happened to be there on business. pizza buffet, mmm! we went to lots of our favorite places to eat: zaxby's, chick fil a, panera, sonny's bbq, etc. we also visited one of the ward's that jd served in for a long time in ackworth. it was nice to meet some of the people there, even thought it had changed a lot. the all loved him. we had a nice sunday and sunday dinner with a family from the ward that jd has kept in touch with. they were so friendly and fed us a yummy dinner that we were very grateful for after eating out so much. we went to the flea market and found some funny things and a few christmas gifts. it was huge! we also spent a lot of time just exploring the area. we love just driving and looking at the houses around there, they are so pretty.

of course, there were also a few things that we didn't have time to do so i guess we're going to have to go back again.