Memorial Day 2012

Today is Memorial Day, a day for us to be thankful for our troops, a day off from work for Chris and a day for us to spend together as a family! Chris proposed to me at a beautiful waterfall named Toccoa Falls. Toccoa Falls was where my grandparents had their very first date- Chris is such the romantic. Anyway I'm getting off track, some dear friends of ours Whitney and Josh who also share the same anniversary as we do, got engaged at another waterfall just several miles away from Toccoa Falls. Whitney and Josh recently moved back to their home state of Ohio, but before leaving told us about the other waterfall, the one Josh proposed to her at. Whitney told me it was a pretty easy walk a few miles in. Well being the hiking fanatic that I am I decided to plan our family day for a GREAT hike - Yeah Right! It started out wonderful, everyone was eager and ready to scout out this new place. The boys really enjoyed watching for snakes, and lizards. And YES we got to see two snakes, one lizard, beautiful wild flowers, streams, and tons of different mushrooms. But not the waterfall, we hiked all the way in 4 long miles, came to the end of the trail that ended up on an ATV trail and couldn't find the other side of the hiking trail which would take us to the waterfall. We even called Whitney in Ohio (thankful for a cell phone) to try to get directions to the end for the grand prize.... the waterfalls. But we still couldn't find it. After a long time searching we were all HOT sweaty, tired, and hungry. So we decided to call it a day and head back to the car. Chris seems to think He and I can come back without the kids and find it. The horrible part is that the entire hike both there and back Nick kept saying... "Who's idea was this anyway" amazing what 5 year olds will say! And as terrible as this sounds I just ignored him pretending I couldn't hear him. I couldn't bear for him to know it was my idea and that my GREAT  idea of a family fun day had failed!! Well better luck next time, I am determined for our next family hike to be amazing! Or as amazing as it can be with a 2 year old and a 5 year old tagging along. I'm adding some the photos from our hiking trip.

A pretty mushroom we found, the top is shaped like a star.

lizard that we found hiding.

The 1st snake that we came across.

The 2nd snake we came across just 10 min later. This one was eager to get away from us.

Having a snack, while Daddy looks for the waterfall. Tired and grumpy already.



And the last picture of the day. She didn't even make it off the trail before the was out!