Summer 2012 Family Road Trip, 3. Big Canoe, GA

Stop 3: Big Canoe, GA

David and Mary Beth Pate's wedding we were attending was being held at Big Canoe, GA, a mountain resort with lakes, beautiful cabin homes, pools, golf, tennis, - even a rock slide! So, we got to have some fun, and also spend some time with the Pate family- aunt Karen and uncle Steve, Andy and Kristen and their kids Aidan and Karissa before they moved to Boston, and Kristy and Mark with little Taylor came all the way from Hawaii.
The Pates had a big family cookout at their cabin Thursday night; Friday we enjoyed the pool, the lake's paddle boats and canoes, and the rock slide, before we went to the rehearsal dinner. Saturday was more swimming and sliding, then catching quick naps before heading to the wedding. Sunday- long drive back to Tampa!
We shared a beautiful 3-bdrm cabin home with my parents, and they were great about helping us with the kids, especially with the little one who'd rather nap than rock slide! It was awesome being in the mountains and in nature- except for the night we got lost on the looong winding roads getting back to our cabin!! Car sick anyone?!

Hiking up the hill behind our cabin.

Rehearsal Dinner

Rosemary was absolutely FULL of "cheese" this night! There were many cameras snapping and she was 'cheesing' for all of them!

 Georgia and Aidan getting their dance moves ready for the next night's reception!
She and Lincoln loved getting to hang out and play with Aidan (4) and Karissa (3).

"How you doin?!"

I realize now that this is the only picture I have of the bride and groom, David and Mary Beth- very unusual for me! (And- my dad took this picture!!) Oh yea- my hands were full of kiddos!! ;) But trust me- it was a beautiful wedding! 

And the reception was great! I loved all the personal touches Mary Beth included- like these fun chalkboard signs you could write on and take pictures with. They are going to find a ton of interesting pictures when they develop all the disposable cameras they had at tables, etc- the kids found out what they were and played photographer- they probably went thru 3 or 4 cameras each!

Rosemary thought the band was playing just for her!

I could let you think she was this pleasant all night- but I'd be lyin! Truth is- this is probably her last smile of the night. After that she decided she'd had a long enough week, and fussed loudly till daddy walked miles with her in the stroller on the porch of the reception hall. Till she blessedly fell asleep and we got to enjoy a bit of the reception. It was fine- you don't take 3 kids with the youngest barely 1 to a night wedding w/o any drama, right?!

Linc learning the Robot from Daddy :)

This is not the best picture of Georgia and Karissa, but I included it bc all my other ones were blurry- they all had so much fun together! After dinner, when we all came back out on the patio to dance under the twinkle lights in the trees, the kids ran around in the grass, catching fireflies in the mason jars they had for the "special" iced tea! How's that for a prefect southern wedding! :)

"This is a super-rocky rocker!'

The rock slide was awesome! This is the top slide, into a small pool of water, to the slide below, into another pool of water- then climb out, up a thousand steps and repeat! And repeat, repeat, repeat... our kids loved it, even though they were probably some of the smallest kids on it. Lincoln started yelling "Oh Yeaaa!!" as he went down! ;)

We have video of this somewhere, but Blogger is acting up, so maybe another day!

That's it! After this it was just the looong drive back down I-75 to Tampa! A successful and fun family road trip! So great to see and spend time with so many loved ones!