A Visit from Chelsey

The same day my Mom left, my little sister, Chelsey, arrived for a visit. One of the first places we took her was the Silver Comet Trail, one of my favorite places to go for a walk. (We took Grammie here too, but forgot to take pictures.)

Just down the trail, next to Nickajack Creek, are the ruins of an old cotton mill (the steel beams have been put in to prohibit the remains of the structure from falling down). The trail to the ruins is a steep/winding paved downhill trail, uphill on the return trip. Nathan and I walked this several times in the last weeks of my pregnancy to try to augment labor. It always brought on many contractions. Postpartum. the hill portion of the walk was quite a challenge, but one that I was able to conquer. I felt so good about that. Before the c-section I never realized how much you use your ab muscles to walk up/downhill.

Nathan is always about taking short cuts, even if it means taking Coop offroading in his stroller.

Last Saturday we took Chelsey to Dahlonega, GA to visit the cute little shops there. When we arrived we were pleased to find out that it was the weekend of "The Gold Rush Festival." Apparently Dahlonega is the home of the first Gold Rush in the US. The festival entailed lots of booths of crafts/paintings/arts. Our favorite was the booth with the terribly cheesy toilet seat covers (too much lace, to say the least), with the tortured old man sitting bored nearly to death in the booth that had probably not sold one thing all day. It was obvious that his dear old wife had sewn all these things and he was the one who was supposed to man the booth to sell them, poor guy. I wanted to buy something from him just out of pity.

Only in Georgia can you find this...PORK CHOPS on a STICK. Not a hot dog on a stick--no, no--an entire PORK CHOP, and only for $3. It was picture worthy. (Can you tell we're sisters?)

After our stop in Dahlonega, we drove up the scenic highway in hopes of finding some autumn colored trees. The high that day was around 45 degrees, which is COLD for GA in October. Poor Cheech; it was cold and rainy here the entire duration of her visit. We did see some yellow and red leaves among all the green. The scenic highway took us past some really redneck areas of GA. That was fun for Cheech to see. We also saw some really beautiful scenery of the GA hills where the Blue Ridge Mountains start.

Our trip wouldn't have been complete without a stop at one of the orchards on "Apple Row." We stopped at the same place we went last year--B.J. Reece's Apple Store. As I sat in the car to nurse Cooper, Nathan and Chelsey braved the cold wind and fetched fresh apple turnovers for themselves and an apple fritter for me. YUM, YUM! After Coop was full, we braved the cold again and bought apple danish, apple bread, and boiled peanuts (which are sold all over GA). I ate half the peanuts on the way home. Double yum.

On our way back to the car we quickly plopped Cooper in the middle of the pumpkins for sale. It was too cold to adjust the blanket, but the picture is still pretty cute.

And here is Cooper with his Aunt Chelsey in the pumpkin patch.


Sunday afternoon we again braved the cold weather and set out to show Chelsey some more of GA. Our favorite Chattahoochee River site was closed due to flooding damage from the floods on Sept. 24th. So we went to another more populated place. Here we are in front of "The Hooch."


Chelsey went home Monday morning. We had to snap a few pictures of Cooper with his Aunt the night before, just before he went to bed for the night.

We miss you Cheechee!!! Thank you for visiting!