A Christmas Experience

We were able to do something different this year that we've never done before. A family that we know offered their cabin to us for a few days. It was located at Pine Mountain, GA, very close to Callaway Gardens. We had never stayed at that cabin before, and had really never gone outside of the middle Georgia area for Christmas. So this was going to be a little getaway plus a fun adventure. We invited my parents to come as well. We had a nice drive over, all riding together in my parent's van, and everyone was relaxed. When we arrived, it was like a Christmas village! Several of the cabins and the grounds were decorated for Christmas. There was an earthen bridge that we drove over that had lights on it and a lit up toy soldier welcoming us through. Our cabin had several Christmas decorations inside and out. I really loved the Christmas tree sitting on the screened-in porch. We were able to see it through the French doors in the living room area. The grounds had all sorts of games available, from tennis, basketball, shuffleboard, and even horseshoes. Mom and I took a walk around our second day there and played some shuffleboard and horseshoes. There was a beautiful lake with swings and benches around it. We also took some time our second day to go to Callaway Gardens and see the butterfly house. Sophie enjoyed running around and seeing the beautiful flowers, butterflies, and plants. We even saw a few butterflies coming out of their cocoons. Sophie and I had talked about this before (The Very Hungry Caterpillar is one of our favs). I kept saying to her, "look, Sophie, look at the cocoon!" I thought she wasn't paying attention. A few minutes later she got out her little play phone and said, "hello? Hello, cocoon!" She'll talk to anyone...or anything...on that phone! That night we ate at a great little restaurant called Cricket's and then went to see the lights at Callaway! What fun! We were so excited about the kids seeing it (and we were excited, too). The second we started driving and the lights came into view, Sophie and Isaac both fell asleep! We tried to wake Sophie up, but it was no use. She woke up right about the time when we were done. We went into the big holiday tent and Sophie saw The Gingerbread Man and a Nutcracker Man (Sophie was calling him the cracker-nut man...lol) walking around. She couldn't get enough of them. She hugged them about 5 or 6 times and had her picture taken with both of them. It was so funny...and cute, of course! That night we got back to the cabin, had a fire, hot chocolate, and The Nutcracker was on PBS. It was so much fun to watch. We headed back the next day to Macon. We had a wonderful, restful time. I'm so thankful we were able to go!