How Is This Not Menacing?

Wow, do I have a lot of pictures to share with you! Not today though ... by the time we got home last night, the only thing I wanted to do was collapse in an adorable little heap of Alyson and snore loudly until forced into consciousness by the obligations of real life. (For the record, I woke up late and very whiny.)

I'm not entirely sure how we both managed to drag ourselves back to work...we spent the entire weekend considering quitting and just settling down in the Appalachians.

We had a surprisingly flawless weekend. The driving was not fun from a ten-hours-on-a-bench-seat standpoint, but he's alive, I'm alive, no voices were raised (much), no (serious) punches were thrown ... a success in my book. Plus, there were plenty of giggle fits, good times, great...adventures. A nice little break.

I managed to knit my very first completed project, a skinny scarf/sash/belt thing for Britteny for watching the house. Mom shared a bunch of her funky goodies, and gave me a really cool orange-themed scarf that I fell in love with.

More importantly, I met one of Travis' best friends, Mark, and his family. They live in Valdosta, which is...somewhere in Georgia. We carried on to Hiawassee, Georgia (think Tennessee), stopping in a little town called Forsyth where we had the greatest mama's home cookin' buffet meal EVER. Greens and homemade peach cobbler and sweet tea...all the fixin's. We also got to crawl through Helen, Georgia. Or, as I will always refer to it, Hell In Georgia. Good Christ, what a miserable experience that was - my advice to you is to always avoid that town and take the alternate roads around it. I'm sure the tubing is lovely, but the traffic was horrifying.

By the time we finally got to Hiawassee, we were so grateful to be out of that truck!! My parents' friends live on a big house on Lake Chatuge, two boats, all that stuff. Travis took the dirtbike out for a spin, but he didn't really have the capabilities he'd been hoping for up there. We cruised on it once more, but most of the time was spent eating, hanging out with the family, chilling on the boat, and eating some more. Judy's son Rod is a wonderful cook and made us some lovely meals...and tried to kill Travis. There appeared to be the slightest bit of chest-thumping going on there...Travis took the kneeboard (ouch) out on the water, and Rodney towed him just a tad (bwah) faster than instructed.

Oh, and I learned (kind of) to waterski! Judy's husband, Drew (the owners of the house), was a professional ski instructor for years...he skiied barefoot on that lake three times while we were there. Despite an advanced case of macular degeneration (he's nearly blind), he can still ski, spot, and drive the boat. He gave me a few pointers, and after I had a severe fit of giggles in the water and couldn't quite seem to recover, he jumped in to help me balance. I made it straight up on my fourth try (Travis says third because he prefers the way it sounds) and managed about ten seconds upright before I toppled over backward and called it a day. (Migraine, of course.) I was really excited for myself, and maybe a little more excited by how proud Travis and my mom seemed of my relative quickness on the uptake of the sport.

Then there was just more food, some hammock time, some fireworks, and the long drive back. I didn't share the driving duties as much as I should have (knitting), but I did make sure to switch the iPod to Dane Cook or Denis Leary whenever agitation set in. We also stopped by to see some of the family in North Florida (Travis' great-aunt and her husband) and hear a few stories.

And I will be sure to share my pictures with you of Babyland USA. Cleveland, Georgia is home to the Cabbage Patch Kids, and we stopped by the museum, despite Travis' lack of enthusiasm for the dolls, which many people seem to think are creepy. We watched a cabbage tree, fed by human blood, give birth to a naked fabric infant. Menacing, indeed.

(And I know cabbage doesn't grow on trees, but apparently it does in Babyland USA.)

No sign today - this one's all about me - coming back atcha tomorrow.