Atlanta Trip! Part One :-)

I think I may have just broken a personal record with my lapse in blogging! It’s been upwards of 40 days or something like that. Well, it’s not for lack of things to say. :-) Hopefully, over the next few days, I will be able to catch up! I know…it’s so exciting!

Let’s start with our vacation! We took Ryley’s Spring Break to fly to Atlanta, Georgia, to see Ryan’s family.

Ryley was pretty stoked that her daddy allowed her to bring BOTH American Girl dolls (Emily and Elisabeth) as well as Sarah, Helena, and Lily. Yes, there were five babies/puppy to keep track of. Ryan’s thoughts? She’s asking if she can bring her babies so they’re not left home alone? Whatever it takes to keep her little as long as possible. :-)

In the Atlanta airport, we met up with Ryan’s sister Gwen from New York, and after renting our car,  we drove to Ryan’s other sister Rhonda’s house, an hour north of the airport, and arrived a little after midnight.

Ryan’s birthday was the next day, and Rhonda had a cookie cake awaiting him in the morning:

No, he’s not really 24. Haha. Well, 24 plus a decade. :-)

Because I am always one to squeeze activity and adventure into every possible second AND because I am always over-committing us, we headed out that morning for a little road trip to Columbia, South Carolina. You might say it was a road-trip within a trip. ;-)

Seeing Rhonda’s neighborhood and surrounding countryside in daylight for the first time, we were awed by how beautiful rural Georgia is!

We had to keep reminding ourselves that in a month or two there will be chiggers and sweltering heat.

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We wound our way through a bunch of po-dunk Georgia towns and had lunch in Gainesville, Georgia. Then on to South Carolina!

Though we stay in pretty good touch, we hadn’t seen my cousin Shawn and her husband Patrick in almost eight years, and we had never met their adorable kids Carter and Abby.

Getting to know each other:

Aren’t Abby’s curls just luscious???

See the rockers on the front porch? I would say 90 percent of houses we saw in South Carolina and Georgia have rocking chairs on their front porch! So funny!

Shawn and Patrick took us for a little tour of Columbia (very quaint and southern!) and then to dinner at this restaurant that used to be a train station. Very cool! And delicious!

It was so good to see them and to see their lives in person! We follow each others’ blogs, but it’s just not the same! :-)

It was sad to leave the next day… Shawn and Abby helped carry all of Ryley’s offspring to the car.

Thank you, Shawn and Patrick, for being such gracious hosts! We are so glad we were able to see you!!!!

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We left Columbia and headed for our next stop…Augusta, Georgia! I have followed Melanie’s blog since 2006, and vice versa. So when we realized we would be passing through Augusta on our way back from Shawn’s, we made plans to hook up! We have talked about how fun it would be to meet in person for several years now.

Before we arrived at their house, Ryan wanted to drive by the Augusta National Golf Club, where the Masters would be held just a week later! We couldn’t see much (there were signs of warning and security), but there was a lot of media buzzing around.

Very interesting!

We arrived at Melanie and Wayne’s house. It was a little surreal to pull up in front and see two girls whom I have watched grow up through their mom’s pictures and stories come bounding out of the house in real life!  Ryley loved meeting Abby and Emma. I’m not sure what all they did upstairs, but Ryley did say Abby has a really cool room, and they want to be penpals! We’ve long said that they two of them, specifically, are very similar. :-)

We went to lunch and had a great time talking in person! So cool!

Thank you, Melanie and family, for taking time to have lunch with us! It was so much fun!!!

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Our goal was to make it back to Rhonda’s house in time for dinner, but I had one more stop I wanted to make. When I was exactly Ryley’s age, my family moved to Atlanta for about five months. I wanted to show Ryley the apartment where I used to live in the Atlanta suburb of Roswell:

Funny how some things don’t change:

My brother and me, summer 1986:

Same door?

It’s definitely a little more, ahem, secured these days. I believe we were the first tenants in our unit on the second floor.

Time marches on!

To be continued…..