Gardens and Jamie's birthday weekend

A few more activities from the end of June.

We visited the botanic garden again to see the Imaginary Worlds exhibit.  The exhibit features over a dozen giant plant sculptures.  We saw the beginnings of the unicorn last time and got to see it finished this time.  The sculptures were pretty awesome!

Unicorn

My two sillies practicing walking backward

In front of the giant Earth Goddess statue

Chilling with the frogs

Posing with Mommy

Giant snake sculpture

With Daddy in front of the butterflies

We also visited the Smith-Gilbert garden in a neighboring town for the first time.  They had a nice path through a variety of vegetation types.  Fortunately much of it was shaded because it was a hot and humid morning!  They also had a fish pond where Claire got to feed the fish and a kid-oriented vegetable garden with bubbles! 

Finally found the long-awaited bubbles!

Feeding the fishies

At the end of June, Claire and I headed up to Demorest, Georgia to visit my sister's new place and celebrate her birthday.  After finishing PA school in April, she took a job up that way as a physician assistant in an ER.  She's renting a cute little house that we had yet to see.  And she wanted some people to come up and accompany her on outings around her new home base.  Claire and I drove up Saturday morning.  My mom arrived shortly before us.  We hung around for the day and took some naps before heading out to Helen, GA in the evening.  Helen is a cute little town themed as a small German village.  The river runs through town and in warm weather there are hundreds of people tubing down the river.  Jamie wanted to have dinner on the water and watch people on tubes bust their butts trying to navigate the rocks.  So we walked around town and then had dinner at Troll Tavern. 

Cheers to the birthday girl!

Saying hi to the horses

Claire no like it!

That evening we went back to Jamie's place for this delicious Snickers cake!

The next day (Jamie's actual birthday) she wanted to have brunch at a winery in Dahlonega.  A friend of hers had raved about their food.  We were a little concerned since their brunch menu wasn't online and the dinner food looked pretty fancy.  We aren't really fancy food type people, especially with a 2 year old tagging along.  But we gave it a try anyway.  And it was delicious!  Claire was pretty well behaved, if a little loud.  We started with a cheese plate.  Then my mom had a butternut squash soup while I got a cinnamon roll to keep Claire happy.  Ok, and maybe me too.  For entrees we had french toast, biscuits and gravy, and a Cuban sandwich.  My mom and Jamie tried a red wine flight.  If you are in the North Georgia mountains and looking for a little wine, some good food, and a pretty view, we can recommend Le Vigne at Montaluce Winery in Dahlonega!

View from our table

Posing outside the restaurant