cloudland canyon day 2

After a not terrible but not fantastic first nights sleep we got up and ready for day 2.  The weather was straight cold in the early mornings and at night.  We were glad for a fire and multiple sweatshirts!

Andrew and Krista and their sweet baby Olivia joined us again for day 2 but Tom and Linda were both at work.  We had a full day planned and it was starting with a 3.8 mile hike around the rim of the canyon.  I was excited but terrified.  I was pretty confident that we would all come back safely but walking a path that at times that had a very large rocky drop off two feet to the left had me on edge a lot of the time.  Thankfully no one fell over the edge and we saw some really pretty views.  I was proud of all the kids.  They held up pretty well!

After a very brief rest at home and a couple games of rock acorn checkers we headed to meet Nana and Poppy to go to Rocktown.  Logan fell asleep on the way there and stayed asleep on Zach's shoulder until halfway into the mile hike.  After climbing on one little rock with me he slipped a little and then decided he was not a fan of the experience.  The two of us cuddled and looked at pictures until it was time to go.  Everyone else had a great time and Micah and Connor LOVED it.  Zach got a great video of all their 'bouldering'.

Next stop was a cave.   I did not know until 100 yards from said cave that it was not a cave I imagine in my head and as soon as I was told it was not a cave that I imagine in my head I informed everyone that I was not going in it.  However, Zach thought it would be a good experience to share with Micah and Connor so I climbed through a dark, cold, slippery, winding hole into a giant cavernous area beneath the earth doing my best not to let my second born who basically got only my DNA see my tears so that he would not begin to freak out as well.  It was amazing down there and I probably would have ventured a little farther had I not had to crawl through the white rabbit's hole to get in there and if I wasn't worried that at any moment one of the boys would disappear and be lost forever.  Connor came out and declared he hated it and Micah came out and declared he loved it and wanted to go again.  Zach was on Micah's side.  

Our last stop was an overlook at the top of the mountain.  It was a gorgeous view but there was an even bigger drop off with zero things to stop the kids from dropping and my nerves were shot after the cave experience so we didn't stay long.  Thankfully it started drizzling so I didn't have to force any departures because the rain did it for me.  Thank you rain! 

I do want to go on record by saying that I had a great day!  Even with all the stressed out mama moments it was a wonderful time with my little family and part of our bigger family being outside in the gorgeous creation.  Just needed to get that in ;)

cloudland canyon day 1

During our Fall Break last week we went to North Georgia to visit Zach's parents and to go camping, or yurting I should say, with his sister and her family.  We stayed at Cloudland Canyon State Park in their yurt village and then went out during the day to different parts of the park and surrounding areas.

On Sunday we did our first hike.  Our first stop was a short little walk to this gorgeous overlook view!  We had the most gorgeous weather.  Cool and sunny with bright blue skies.

Our next stop was the waterfalls.  We walked about 600 steps down to the first waterfall and stopped to watch, throw sticks in the water and have a snack.  For some reason I did not think it was necessary to bring our hiking backpack for Logan.  Very wrong!  Zach was a (very strong) trooper during the trip!

After hiking half of the way back up when then took 600 more steps down a seemingly never ending winding set of stairs in a different direction to see waterfall number two.  It was beautiful as well and required more pictures and more resting and more snacks.

After hiking back up the 1000ish steps we headed to the yurts for unpacking and dinner.  Jess was in charge of dinner that night and Tony was in charge of the fire building pretty much the whole trip so Zach took pictures and hung out with his family while I took all the kids to the playground which just happened to be down the street a bit.  I also need to mention that the yurts has a space heater and electricity.  This yurting this was my kind of camping!

After dinner and stories by Nana around the fire we put the kids down and sat around chatting for a couple hours before our first sleep to get ready for the next day.