It has been a wonderfully relaxing four days here at Callaway Gardens, Georgia. We landed in Atlanta on Saturday morning after a grueling flight from Incheon. On our way to Callaway, we stopped by some very important stores to ensure we picked up the necessities before getting to our destination - namely Babies R Us and Target - and eventually found ourselves at the registration office for our Summer Family Adventure. :)
Sweetheart that Tay is, she stayed awake through almost the entire flight...not really causing too many problems, but also not allowing a very exhausted pregnant Mom to get any sleep...:P Nonetheless, the flight was uneventful, thankfully, so although I was cranky by the time we landed, Jeff kept his spirits up for the three of us and we made it all the way to Callaway with no meltdowns. Tay actually fell asleep the last couple hours on the plane and continued to sleep through immigration, customs, BabiesRUs, Target, and the beautiful drive down to Callaway. Once we were parked at the registration office and Jeff went inside to pick up our paperwork and keys, she awoke and as soon as she saw me peering back at her from the front seat, she smiled her sweet little smile. I asked her how she slept and she whispered, "Good." Then she got a puzzled look on her face and asked, "Where's Tita?" Hehehe...I guess she assumed we were on our way to "work" as we did almost every morning back in Korea. After I told her Tita was at her house and that we were on vacation, she nodded in groggy understanding and she glanced around the car...at which point her eyes widened a little more as she saw that the car was not our normal car. She looked quickly down at her car seat and grinning, she said, "Who got me my new car seat? You get it for me?" Funny child. Then she must have remembered that she was on an airplane before, so she asked, "Where airplane go?"
Well, once Jeff came back out of the registration office, we made our way to our cottage for the next two weeks. Tay, of course, asked if this was our new home, and we explained it would be for a little while. We looked around the neighborhood and Jeff showed us the grounds in our "little bitty car," which is what Tay decided to call our golf cart. :) That evening, we got ourselves dinner and a treat from the "malt shop & pizzaria" and had a nice swim to end the day. The water was so wonderfully warm in the pool that we didn't want to get out, even though it was around 9pm! Someone had left a noodle in the pool and as one family was leaving, a little kid came up and gave the noodle to Tay to play with since, I assume, it wasn't theirs either. Maybe it was a community noodle. Tay said thank you and then she turned to me and said, "Her gave it to me!" and she was so excited. :) We played with the noodle for a while, floating around, her playing lifeguard and pulling me out of the water using the noodle as her "lasso" and talking through it like a telephone. She really didn't want to leave the pool, but with promises of returning tomorrow, we finally made our way back to the cottage (which is about a 100 yards away if you take the long route) and prepared to sleep for the night...or so we thought. Tay was none to excited about going to bed because she was now wide awake...oh my...and Jeff and I...were quite exhausted. We battled it out until around 11pm before she finally went to sleep after much tears. She did wake up many many times throughout the night, as did we because of the jet lag, but we tried to sleep as much as we could.
Jeff took Tay for a jog in the stroller Sunday morning before the sun came up and I tidied up around the house and unpacked a bit more. After they got back, Tay was sound asleep in the stroller - I forgot to mention, Tay didn't sleep past 1:30 the night before. We decided to let her sleep a bit thinking she'd wake up before we went to breakfast at 8, but she didn't wake up so we just put her sleeping into the car seat and went on to breakfast. Jeff took us to the Country Store, which was absolutely delicious...I had whole wheat banana griddle cakes and couldn't finish them because of the quantity, but they were absolutely delicious. I also ate the rest of Jeff's grits...yum. Tay slept through the entire meal and didn't even wake up when we strapped her back in the car seat to go home.
That afternoon, my mom and dad drove down from Virginia to join us at the cottage for a week. We met them at another ice cream parlor called Sages, but I wasn't as impressed there as I was with the malt shop. Eh. Tay woke up then, and she quickly got reacquainted with my folks and it has been just days of grandparent spoiling since. Tay's got the good life going for her during this vacation. First, my folks will spoil her until the Ryals grandparents arrive and do the hand-off at the end of this week and then she gets spoiled by them for the next two weeks and then it's back to my folks for a week in Virginia! A whole month of getting spoiled by grandparents...she's never going to want to go back home! :) I guess that's what summer vacations should be all about...
It has been a fantastic first three/four days here at Callaway with lots of walking, a little hiking, lots of swimming and catching fireflies...:) We've got visitors coming down the next couple days and then the other side of the family arrives this weekend so it's going to be pure chaos once the rest of the clan gets here! Really looking forward to it!!!
What a WONDERFUL start to our 2010 summer vacation!
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