[12/5/11] Monday Memories: Wilkommen to Helen, Georgia.

Saturday was John's 4?th birthday, so I cashed in some of his Hilton points (there are a few advantages to all of this travel!) and took him away for an overnighter on Friday after work. We stayed in Cornelia, Georgia, which is a small town off of Interstate 985 in the North Georgia mountains. It was so good to get away for awhile, and even better that our kids are old enough to stay alone overnight. :o)

We ate dinner at a local steakhouse, our servers were especially nice, and the food was yummy! We got the impression it was a family-owned restaurant. I really love true Southerners - they are polite and nice and I love their accents.  Not that un-true Southerners can't have all of these qualities, of course, but there's something special about true Southerners.

Anyway...

Saturday morning we slept in a little bit (yeah!), ate breakfast at the hotel, and headed to Helen, Georgia. I've wanted to visit Helen since the first time we lived in Georgia, but we never made it. Helen is an interesting town.  Here's what wikipedia says about the history of Helen:

Formerly a logging town that was in decline, the city resurrected itself by becoming a replica of a Bavarian alpine town, in the Appalachians instead of the Alps. 

There is a main street with lots of little shops, and every building follows this alpine theme.  It was fun to walk around and look in the shops.  And of course, we stopped in one of the candy shops and shared a chocolate-carmel-pecan thing and a praline.

We looooove pralines.

Here are some more pictures from our Helen visit:

 

We had a great time and enjoyed having some time together away from the "world."

I'm so thankful for this guy I married 25 years and 351 days ago (yes, our 26th (!) anniversary is coming up on the 19th).  He is caring, he works really hard to provide for us, he cooks, he cleans, he's always been a real hands-on dad, and he does whatever it takes to make me happy. He supports me and the kids in all that we do and he's pretty patient. He honors his priesthood and sticks to what he knows to be right. 

He's pretty much totally awesome.

And I'm so very thankful he's mine.