Cloudland Canyon

 Cloudland Canyon State Park has to be the most beautiful state park in Georgia.  I was amazed at the beauty I saw.  After leaving Rock City, we drove 30 minutes to this park.  It was not originally in the plan to do either this or Rock City on the first day, but the weather was going to be bad the rest of the week, and I wanted to make sure that we got all of the outside stuff done on the one day that we knew it would be good weather.  Unfortunately, that meant we had to shorten our hike at Cloudland Canyon.  Instead of doing the 5 mile West Rim hike, we ended up doing the 2 mile Waterfalls hike.  The kids were not sad at all about this because they like waterfalls.  There were several falls in the park, but the one that we visited was Hemlock Falls.  It was a a lovely waterfall, and the trail down was nice.  It was the same trail back up, and it was much tougher journey up than down.  The kids still did well with it, though- they left Brian and I in a cloud of dust.  This park is in the extreme northwest of Georgia, so I don't know that I'll ever make it back this way.  But, if I do I would definitely be interested in checking out some of the other trails in the park.

See Rock City

We woke up super early on Monday morning and drove six hours to Chattanooga, Tn.  Brian and I first visited Chattanooga back in 2007 when Olivia was just a few months old.  We really enjoyed our visit to that city and have been wanting to go back ever since.  We arrived in Chattanooga shortly after lunch and headed straight to Rock City.  Rock City is a park on Lookout Mountain that has a path through large, naturally occurring boulders.  The path winds through the rocks and leads up to "Lover's Leap", which offers views of seven states.  It was pretty foggy on the day that we went, so we probably only saw about two states.  It was still a good view.  Our kids LOVE hiking, and this was the first of many hikes that we did during the week.  Both kids said that going to Rock City was their favorite thing that we did on our whole vacation, so I guess that means it was a hit.

Fall Break in Tennessee

Last week was our school's Fall Break, and our family headed to Tennessee for five days/ four nights of fun.  We squeezed a lot of activities into our short time away.  The next couple of posts will detail the various things that we did on our trip.

Garth Brooks

 Brian and I are not huge fans of country music, but we do like Garth Brooks.  We both had his CDs when we were young, and I even had his poster hanging in my closet.  Garth is on tour this year for the first time in over a decade, and Jacksonville is one of the tour stops- which is amazing in itself because most of the singers I'd like to see pass over Jacksonville and go to Orlando or Tampa instead.  When we realized that Garth was coming to Jacksonville, Brian and I knew that we'd like to go see him.  As it turns out, all of my sisters wanted to go too, so Cassie ordered tickets for all the sisters and their significant others.  Let me just say that this was without a doubt the BEST concert I've ever been to.  Garth was awesome.  He played all of the oldies and he had the crowd on fire all night.  We had seats on the side of the stage- third level, but I don't think that there was a bad seat in the entire house.  At one point he took a break and Trisha Yearwood came out and sang about four songs.  She was also very good.  I just cannot say enough about how good of a show Garth put on.  We didn't get home until after 1 a.m., and I was tired and hoarse the next day, but it was worth it.

Jacksonville Marine Corps Half Marathon

This makes the fourth year that I have run the Jacksonville Marine Corps Half Marathon.  I went in with high hopes for a PR.  To begin with, it was my friend Darby's first half- so I was  in a good mood because I was excited for her (and she did great).  Also, the bridges that are usually on this course were having work done on them, so they were eliminated (making the course easier).  On top of all this, the weather was suppose to be more favorable than it has been the past two years.  Well, I did get a record- but not the kind I wanted.  I ran the worst half that I've ever had.  I mean worse by like 15 minutes.  I finished in 2:27:36.  Apparently I am not as in as good a shape as I thought.  This worries me a bit because I'm only a month out from a full marathon.  Should be interesting to see how that goes.  Even though I was disappointed with my time, I did have fun.  This is a great half, it's for a good cause, and the medals were very nice this year.

Olivia's 8th Birthday

Olivia's birthday usually falls during our school's Fall Break week, but this year it did not.  So, on the her actual birthday we proceeded with our usual routine and then took her out to eat in the evening.  On Saturday we continued to celebrate Olivia's 8th birthday by having our family over for pizza, cake, and ice cream.  Hannah made a super-cute "Hobbit" cake for Tolkien's #1 fan.  Olivia received many nice gifts.  Thank goodness she got some new clothes because a lot of her things from last year are too small for her now.  Olivia had a great birthday.

What Happens at Gigi's...

 I think that Hannah and I are enjoying my parents' retirement almost as much as they are.  We have found various ways to keep them busy.  One of the new "jobs" that my parents have assumed is watching the kids during staff-only days at school.  Last week I borrowed my mom's camera to download some pictures and found the evidence of what happens at Gigi and Papa's when the parents aren't around.  Here are some of my favorites.