A Grand Day Out!

     It was  definitely great weather to make a quick day trip, so we packed ourselves a picnic and drove up to Helen, Georgia to look at the leaves and just walk around a bit.  After so much rain and cold, we jumped at the chance to go outside and fool around a bit.  The leaves were changing colors on the trees all around, and the mountains glowed with wonderful shades of red, orange and yellow.  As our car zooomed northward, the leaves danced and swirled about as they fell all around us on the road.  It was a perfect fall day!

     We got up there a little after noon, so our first order of business was finding a place to have a picnic.  No problem:  there were these picnic tables located right there by the Chattahoochee River, and nobody else was nearby at all.  Mommy set things up at the table and we all enjoyed our sandwiches and snacks right there by the rushing water.  The scenery was so perfect, we decided we had to snap some photos of Madison.  They all came out very nicely - too many to post here!  Madison has such a photogenic face, unlike her Daddy!

     We made our traditional visit to Betty's Country Store, where we found all sorts of classic candies and sodas.  Mommy found some tiramisu dessert mix for later (yummy!), and Daddy got himself a bottle of orange sunday float mix.

     After that, we wandered up the street to check out Charlemagne's Kingdom Model Railroad Museum, which is a mouthful to say.  But, it did have a pretty big train set that Madison got to check out.  Mommy and Daddy have been to Roadside Amercia, which has a HUGE train set inside.  But this one was rather big too.  It had an upper viewing area as well, so we could look down upon the kingdom.  Madison enjoyed the souvenir shop they had there, especially the large Thomas the Train playset they had sitting at just her height!

     Right next door was a toy store which featured old wooden toys - a lot of classics that Mommy and Daddy remember growing up.  One toy in particular captured Madison's attention:  it was that penguin slide toy, where these penguins march up a set of stairs over and over again - only to slide down a long curving slide.  She was so fascinated with this toy that she watched it for about twenty minutes.  I am not exaggerating.  While Mommy and Daddy looked for stocking stuffers for her for Christmas, she watched and played with those penguins until it was time to go (and yes, we wound up picking up the penguin toy for her too!).  All the toys we got there will be great for Christmas for Madison, but that doesn't mean Mommy and Daddy didn't enjoy looking around too.

     Soon, it was time to go home.  We hopped in the car, and Madison made sure her cat - a stuffed animal - was properly in the seat next to her with the seatbelt on.  Once we were ready for the journey home, Mommy surprised Madison with some free candy:  it was the button candy we got at Betty's Country Store.  This last photo here is of Madison in her car seat, picking off those candy buttons as fast as she can!

     

I think she likes them!