Lots of laughs in Dawsonville GA

Last month, I had the pleasure of hanging out with a friend from Italy.  Brittany has been mentioned many times on here, going back to our time in Italy.  She lives in the mountains of Georgia and on my way home from Grandpa Bob's, we stopped to hang out for a few days. 

Hanging out on the back porch.  That's Brittany snapping a pic of her son Ethan and my Joshua.  

Above: My second night there, Brittany, her husband and another friend and myself went to see Shania Twain in concert.  He had received the tickets free and passed them along to us.  I'm not a big Shania Twain fan but I must say that she put on a really fantastic show! She interacted with her audience a lot, which I love seeing.  

Paper Airplanes never seem to lose their magic.  That's Bella launching hers.

Somehow paper airplanes evolved into tug of war.  

Which evolved into dragging people around on the floor on the blanket.

The kids played non stop and played hard.  

The most fantastic tree house I've ever seen 

(which I blogged about before here: Ta-da).

It was a short visit, only a few days but it was so much fun catching up.  For myself and for the kids.  We ended up pulling out Sunday evening for a quiet drive home.  That was not what I got.  Instead I had torrential rainfall and slow moving traffic because I couldn't see.  The kids napped nearly the whole way because they were just done.  

Croatan Lodge, Fort Bragg NC

Over the MLK holiday, we went exploring!  Our friends, Bill and Amy, had been telling us about this old Rockefeller mansion that had been abandoned on army base.  From the minute he told us about it, David and I were interested.  And that is where we ventured off to.  

The front of the Croatan Lodge.  

The property is extensive.  When it became abandoned the army bought it, and now uses is for training purposes.  

When it was built, it was designed as  golf course and hunting lodge.  There are many buildings spread all over the place to explore.  

This is part of a golf area.  

Attached to this building was an indoor pool, which can still be seen.  

My best pictures are the panoramic shots I took, but I don't know how to get them onto the blog in their original format.  

A few of the buildings could not be explored because of asbestos.  Like this one below.  

This building was in relatively good shape, as can be seen by the hardwood floors that are still in tact and in decent condition.  

I don't have more to write because it was haphazard exploring.  We were just walking around, and stumbling upon stuff.  My next visit, I plan on having a game plan, and being more informed about where I am, what building I'm walking into and such.  

You can read more about the Croatan Lodge here: Percy Rockefeller Lodge

Myrtle beach part 2

After the cheer competition, we headed to Broadway at the Beach.  It's a total money trap, but nice for all the reasons that it is a trap.  There's so much for kids to do there. They have some dinosaurs, which are very popular.  All you can do is climb on them, but the kids love to do just that.  

The girls discovered that they could pick up the little pieces of food dropped by others and feed it to the birds.  The birds would practically take it right out of your hand.

After the cheer events had wrapped up, Jayden and Layla and their cousins met us at Broadway.  We decided to head to the aquarium.  

Which is always a hit.  And a VERY reasonable price for active duty and veterans, families included.  

The girls ran around, oohing and ahhing the sharks, eels, turtles and fish.  

Jayden and Hannah played with some crabs.  

After exploring the aquarium for a few hours, Jayden said good bye.  She had to go take team photo's.  Then our family went back in to watch the mermaid show.  A neat addition to the aquarium, and the show is free.  David had scooped it out and figured how to get the girls right in front during the mermaid meet and great.  

It's a dark photo, but there's our girls with the mermaids.