Grandma Pat, Spring Break, and Brielle's Birthday

Brielle's month-long 10th birthday celebration started with a visit from Grandma Pat for the first part of the kids' Spring break.

 

Rainy, cool weather during her visit prevented us from enjoying the beach, but of course we just had fun enjoying each others' company at our house. One nice afternoon we did get out to enjoy Washington Oaks Gardens Park down near Marineland. We had been to the part of the park that reaches out to the ocean (with the rocky shoreline), but we didn't know that there was a beautiful garden on the intracoastal side.

  Brielle loved her birthday gifts from Grandma Pat, and both kids had fun with her in the hot tub and sitting by the fire to warm up outside. 

The next day we headed out for our "reverse commute" spring break vacation, driving from Florida up to Georgia. The idea was to hit certain destinations with stops along the way that would be fun for the kids. We stayed the first night at a hotel south of Atlanta, stopping along the way in Valdosta to have some fun at Jumpin' Jacks inflatable indoor playground. The kids miss Pump It Up, so they were delighted to have a chance to run around and try out all the huge inflated slides and bouncy houses.

The first night in Locust Grove we had a Pizza Hut dinner in the hotel room and swam in the indoor heated pool. The next morning we headed up to Atlanta to explore the Georgia Aquarium.

  

Ronan loves lists about the "best", the "largest", the "tallest", the "fastest", etc., so he was excited that he was seeing the largest aquarium in the world.

  Even on a Wednesday it was extremely crowded, but we had the whole day to visit and got to see everything we wanted to see.

  One fun attraction was the ability to climb through a tunnel that opens up to a small glass viewing area right it the middle of the penguin display. Brielle took a ton of photos and videos during our visit.

One of my favorites is the jellies...

After the aquarium, we drove north to Helen, Georgia. None of us had been there before, but Kraig had learned about this small town that is completely designed to look like a Bavarian German town. They, of course, host an Oktoberfest event, but there were no big events during our visit so it was nice and quiet. It was strange to drive north during spring break to a town that was experiencing freeze warnings the day before we arrived, but it was actually refreshingly cool with some sunshine during our visit, so it worked out well. We enjoyed seeing the landscape change as we climbed into the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

  

We arrived in time for dinner and a swim in the heated pool.

The next day was Brielle's birthday, so we asked her what she wanted to do.

 

I was excited that she choose something I thought would be fun - panning for treasure! I had read that finding gold and gems was an activity in this area and envisioned going down to the river to see what we could find. But they actually have several places where you do the panning in a more controlled environment, which was a lot easier and more lucrative.

  The way it works is you can buy a pre-made bucket of sand and treasures then use the water troughs to sift through it. Given that you can buy a gem bucket,  fossil bucket, or a gold bucket (and the fact that they had a chart on the wall showing what you might find in each), the results weren't much of a mystery. But that was totally fine - the kids loved finding large gems in each shovelful! We ended up with about 10 large, colorful gems in each bucket. I thought I'd do the gold bucket, but what you find is flakes of gold and it takes a very long time to sift through it, so that wasn't good for our schedule. We were all excited by the gems we collected. In fact, we returned again before dinner to do it again!

Next we visited one of the three miniature golf courses and had the whole place to ourselves.

We chose the one on the top of a hill so we could have a nice view of the town.

The kids will remember it for a unique course with a river that carries the ball towards the hole.

In the afternoon we walked around the town to have lunch by the river and look at the stores. Our hotel was on the main road and it's possible to easily walk to anything you want to see.

We all really enjoyed the town, and afterwards the kids would report that their favorite part was a discovery that was a surprise to us. Right across the street from our hotel was some construction and a sign announcing the future site of the "Georgia Mountain Coaster". However, when we walked by we could see that people were actually riding on it. Other people in town told us that it was actually done and they were doing some "test" runs for free for anyone interested. We weren't sure about it at first, but it seemed that the "test" part was more for staff training and learning about the flow of the crowd, so we decided to give it a try.

You can only see the bottom part of the ride from the road because it stretches up a hill, into the forest. Two people sit in the car as it glides down the hill. The grownup in the back has handles that serve as breaks to slow it down, making it different than any ride we've been on. Kraig and Ronan sat together and Brielle and I sat together. She wanted me to make sure it didn't go too fast the first time, but she was braver the second time. Ronan, of course, wanted it to go fast. It was fun!

We managed to find a Thai restaurant amongst all the non-vegan German restaurants (although we did find a lunch place with vegan options actually labeled on their menu). Brielle enjoyed her birthday dinner.

During the trip we let Brielle open one birthday gift per day. On her birthday she opened gifts from Ronan and us. This was her surprised expression when she realized we gave her a cell phone.

After two nights in Helen we drove down past Atlanta to stay in Valdosta for two nights. We surprised the kids by taking them to Wild Adventures for the day. It's a good-sized amusement and animal park with plenty to do all day long.

 

There was a large variety of rides, from toddler ones to large crazy roller coasters. The park was large enough to accommodate the crowds and waits for the rides were generally short. Brielle tends to get tentative about the scarier rides then gets proud of herself after she faces her fears and has fun on them.

 

This hang gliding-type ride was their favorite:

  The park was low-key enough that, for the first time, Kraig and I could actually leave the kids at the bottom of a ride and have them watch us while we jumped on the big roller coasters! This definitely made the park more fun for the grownups.

The animal attractions were integrated into the park. There was also a water park attached which would have been included in our ticket prices if it were open (it doesn't open until next month). Brielle loved the tiger show.

There's a petting zoo and a safari train that rides through a wildlife area with a giraffe, an elephant, and other animals.

 

The kids definitely want to return again some day.

A final surprise for the kids was lunch at our favorite Ethiopian restaurant in Jacksonville on our way home.