Mother's Day Weekend 2017

Mother's Day Weekend 2017 began with some sweet gifts that the boys made at school, included a day trip to the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC, and ended with a family day at home with my favorite guys.

Gifts from RF...The photo in the flower pot is of RF standing in a flower pot with flower petals as ears. His two signs say, 'You are my sunshine' and 'Thank you for helping me grow.'

There's some truth in some of these statements and others are totally off the wall...

Handprint flowerpot from Ellis that says, 'Thanks, MOM, for the good roots.'

Some insight about mommy from the 2 year old...

Saturday morning I set out on a day trip with my mom, Mrs. Margie and Aunt Gale to the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC. We had a great time chatting and driving through the back roads of GA and NC before arriving in Asheville about 11AM. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at Zoes Kitchen before heading over to the Biltmore for our 12:30PM entrance time.

We made it!

There she is...

Mother's Day Weekend at the Biltmore House selfie...

Such a beautiful house...

Solarium...

Beautiful ceiling of the solarium...

So many flowers (orchids EVERYWHERE) and so incredibly relaxing...

Table in the banquet hall...

The banquet hall...

The ceilings throughout the Biltmore House tell their own story of wealth and opulence...

More detailed ceilings...

Breakfast room...

Amazing three-tiered chandelier in the great staircase...

View of the mountains from one of the side porticos...

Got to have a bowling alley...

One of the storerooms to keep the vases and planters for the hundreds of floral displays throughout the house...

Pool...

BEAUTIFUL orchids everywhere...

There were so many different patterns and colors...

Beautiful hydrangeas throughout the house as well...

Display of the many flowers blooming in the gardens that weekend...

A grand house...

Exterior of the house showing the grand staircase...

The day started out rainy and wet, but by the time we were finished in the house, the sun had come out and it warmed up quite a bit...

Gardens looking out at the conservatory...

Roses were in bloom everywhere...

Amazingly beautiful varieties of roses...

Aunt Gale stopping to smell the roses...

A water lily...

More orchids...

Not even sure what it is, but it was beautiful...

More orchids in the greenhouse...

Wild turkey roaming the property...

Gus made a new friend...Aunt Gale gave him a piece of her ham from supper. She is his new best friend. :-)

A Milkshake Drinking, Strawberry Picking, Mountain Climbing Weekend

It might have been two weeks ago and I'm just now getting around to blogging about it, but oh my goodness - what a FUN weekend this was!

Friday afternoon I picked up the boys from school and we headed straight to the park. Daddy had to work a late, so we headed over to our favorite milkshake place to pick up a nice cool sweet treat before we headed home for the evening.

This kid is so much fun...

This kid is so silly...

Enjoying a milkshake at our favorite milkshake locale in Madison...

Wearing half of his milkshake on the drive home...

Playing with his new shovel...

The roses in our yard are in bloom...

 

Saturday morning we headed to a local farm to pick some fresh strawberries and enjoy some time in the sunshine as a family.

 



Two of my favorite men...

RF was cooperative and stuck his head in the strawberry, but not Ellis...

This was the best I got...

Strawberry pickin' morning...

A big ole' grasshopper that we found hiding on one of the strawberry plants...

Strong boy carrying part of our loot...

The farm also has a fairly large kids play area with a ball pit, a slide, inflatables, etc., so the brothers had to take some time to have some fun...

JUMP!

JUMP!

RF and Ellis both went down the slides as usual...

I cleaned and cut up two big freezer bags of strawberries for us to enjoy this summer...

 

Sunday morning we packed the car up for a day trip to the north GA mountains - Black Rock Mountain State Park. We had so much fun! Seriously - it was an awesome day. The boys were in good moods and were totally cooperative (they're 4 and 2, sometimes we have questionable days...).

Winding road taking us up to the top of Black Rock Mountain...

We made it!

Crossing the Eastern Continental Divide...

We stopped in the ranger station/gift shop for a quick bathroom break and RF spotted a hawk in their display...he thinks it's too cool that our last name is the same as a bird...

Windy and dreary morning...

Moss growing on one of the railings...the boys were walking out onto a bridge to get a better view of the mountains...

Lots of fog, but luckily it lifted a little while later and we were able to see much better...

Ranger RF leading us on our tour of the Everglades (???)...I have no idea where that came from, but he insisted we were in the Everglades...

Hiking with my boys...

Water drops on a leaf...

Heading down to take a look at a waterfall...

Enjoying the waterfall...

Taking a break on a swing after our hike...

Fog starting to lift...

Winding dirt road leading us to Black Rock Lake...

Looking out over Black Rock Lake with my boys...

Having a blast!

Ellis throwing rocks into the lake...

Such a cutie...

Chowing down on a hamburger at Waffle House...RF kept telling us that he could make everything on the menu because he is a good cook...

 

Enjoying the car ride home with his new stuffed animal - a king snake...

Ellis got an owl, or as he calls it, a WHO-WHO...

ZONKED...

Everyone uses their stuffed animals as pillows right?