Summer Day vacation - Callaway Gardens

One of my most favorite places in Georgia is Callaway Gardens. I didn't even know this place existed until college and that's when I fell in love with the Fantasy of Lights (which I haven't seen since but maybe this year). Since then, Chris and I have gone several times by ourselves and have taken the kids on a couple of trips. We have an annual tradition (well this year will be the 2nd time) of going to the Sky High hot air balloon festival over Labor Day weekend.

Before summer ended, my mother in law decided that she wanted a couple of days down there as a mini vacation and she invited Andrew and my sister in law Catherine along with her. I can't think of ANY reason why she didn't also want the 2 year old and the 1 year old. :)

If you ever go to Callaway and like turtles or if you take your kids (because all kids like turtles, right?), there is a little less popular trail next to the Whipporwill Lake (or something like that) and if you go down to the pavilion, there are turtles as far as the eye can see. You can see them swimming across the lake with their little heads poking out. Of course, you get more of them if you feed them. If you can't make it that far, there are also a lot near the Discovery Center and you can pay a quarter to get fish food. Feeding the fish was Josh's favorite part.




Peter in particular was completely enamored with the turtles.



I have also been wanting for years to go to the FSU circus that is there each summer. Andrew was very worried that it would be too loud since it is a "circus". I think he was pleasantly surprised that it was just acrobats. My favorite part was the human jump rope which we didn't get a picture of but I found it on youtube.




I did some pre-show entertainment with some hair styling.


Andrew was mesmerized with the trapeze stuff.


It was a great day and well worth the long drive there and back. Although it was a bit hot (100 degrees or so), I think we still had fun. Andrew enjoyed spending the two days with Granny and Catherine. If how much he talked about something is an indication of his favorite things, then he really liked eating Wally Waffles at the Huddle House and going letterboxing with Catherine.

Stay tuned for more Callaway stuff after Labor Day when we go to the Sky High festival again and also get to go camping with our 7 most favorite-st people in the world.