Frank Gibson Photography

I am sure it has been a few years since my cousin Megan got married...Her photographer, Frank Gibson, looked as though he was doing a great job.  After a conversation or two we found out that he was from the area north of Atlanta where the Allens have a home in the mountains,  Blue Ridge, Ga. 

Shameless Plug:  if you are looking for a great Mountain getaway check out their rental website @ www.amazinggracelodge.com. 

Few years later, we hired him to photograph the Allen clan while we were up there for Fathers Day.  He charged $250 for 2 hours (stayed for 3) and provided all the photos on a disc so that we could print them as we desired...If you ask me, he did a great job...especially for the money! We look forward to using him in the future!

Enjoy!

RM

Father's Day Weekend!

Great weekend...We went with the Allens  to their mountain house in Blue Ridge, GA.  It is an easy drive...about 3.5 hours from Montgomery if you do not encounter any traffic in Atlanta or if you do not have to stop!  The house had caught on fire last October so this was the first time we had been back in over 7 months!

Lindsays parents (mimi and grandpa), grandparents (GG and Grandy) went with us and Beau and Ashley along with their kids, Cole, Judah and Zoe were there.

Great time to play the Wii,  grill out,  watch a few movies, relax...we even went tubing.  

 I hope we will use the Mountain house more this year, but without all of the following:

man with a swastika tattoo with something german written underneath (bit scary), a black widow spider, and a scorpion.  

Tons of wild blackberries growing around the house, but unfortunately they were not ready to be picked...Sorry Lindsay!

No trip to Blue Ridge with the kids is complete without a trip to Huck's General Store!  The store is great!  Has a great selection of old and new candies, Great cold bottle drink selection, and other fun toys from the past.  They even opened up a small indoor putt putt course for kids downstairs and a gem mining thing (will have to be a separate post) for kids to look for "gems" by using a sifting box and running water to...Check out the pictures below!

Hucks General Store:

 

  

Rafting:

 

Picnic where they had the olympics in 1996:

 

Mt. House getaway!

What a fun weekend!! I got to go to my parents Mt. House this weekend with some of my AOPi girl friends from college. We have tried to get together at least once a year to catch up and visit with each other. We have been to Gatlinburg, the lake, Auburn and this year I planned for us to go to the Mt. House. When I planned it, I was planning on Robert keeping the girls. Well, it ended up he had to leave for Chicago early Sat morning for the week. Therefore I had to work it out with grandparents to keep the girls for the weekend. It all worked out fine though and I got to leave Friday mid morning with Andrea to head to north GA.


We got there a little before Melissa and Elizabeth who came from Bham and then a few hours later Brie made it down from Cincinnati. We missed Lauren, Melanie and Crissy! Hopefully we can all get together next year!


We started our weekend off by heading to eat at Blue Ridge BBQ and we walked in about 3 minutes before they closed. They were very nice to still serve us and we ate our yummy food outside on the porch. They have good BBQ and wonderful BBQ chicken salad - YUM!!! After our good dinner we headed to the grocery store to gather our food for the weekend. Then went home to relax and talk. We all slept downstairs in the bunk bed room which has 2 sets of bunk beds with queen beds on the bottom and twin on top. Melissa was worried about the Mountainnnn Mannnn! Really, he was our joke all weekend.


We woke up late on Saturday and slowly took our time before heading out to tube the Tacoa. We found our place and waited for Nick to load us up on the bus. He was having a hard time getting everyone straight and figuring it all out and his girlfriend just sat in a chair while we were the ones offering to help him. But we got loaded up and headed to the river up stream. Now Melissa was not so sure of this tubing b/c she really did not want to see snacks....terrified of snacks. Of course Nick has to mention that there are snacks but if you stay towards the middle of the river you should be fine. Elizabeth and I got out into the river while Melissa, Andrea and Brie were a little behind b/c Melissa wanted there tubes to be tied together with her in the middle. She did not want to float close to the side! It was a nice slow float down the river with little rapids...I mean little! Of course Melissa was the one to get stuck on a rock which was hilarious. But we had a fun time on the water!


After tubing, we headed back to the house for a quick change before heading to the downtown Blue Ridge. We only had about an hour and a half before all the stores closed. We walked around a little bit and then got some food at Great Eats which is a French cafe. That was the first time I have eaten there and it was really good also. Then we finished our shopping at the General Store where we got some fun old fashioned candy for us and the kids and then to the Chocolate shop for some fudge! Yummy! We headed back home to hang out and then had a great dinner! Brie had made us some homemade salsa to snack on (oh so good) and then Andrea cooked out some chicken, Elizabeth cooked some vegetables in the oven and we had baked potatoes. We ate outside on the big table with the candles mom had left out for us! It was a wonderful night.


Now for the real fun...we later got in the hot tub. We were all looking forward to relaxing in the hot tub. Now my parents house is in a subdivision, but with very few houses. They are on the top of the Mt with no one really around them and very dark. Again, Melissa has been joking on the Mountainnn Mannn (you would have to hear her say it) all weekend. So we get in the hot tob and it doesn't take long before Melissa is moving towards me asking if I heard that. No Melissa, didn't hear anything. A few minutes later, there is some more rustling. Melissa is not so sure about this anymore. Then all the sudden Elizabeth jumps which makes us all jump and Brie puts her head under water! We all jump out and walk up to the door laughing so hard. Melissa is sure the Mountainnn Mannn is down under the hot tub. I tell them I'm sure there are some racoons and other wild animals out in the woods. After several minutes we head back to the hot tub, no jets this time. As we are sitting there, we finally figure out the noise Melissa kept hearing was when water would splash out and hit the deck and then fall to the ground below. Melissa could not ever really relax so after a short time we headed back inside. We had some good laughs with that! You just have to know Melissa!!!


Oh, forgot to mention we watched the Auburn game...where we played awful....and won with a score of 3-2! Wow!


Sunday morning we got up and cleaned up everything before heading to town to eat at Repaz's for brunch! Again, a wonderful restaurant and brunch was great! We didn't have one bad thing to eat all weekend! We then said our goodbye's and everyone headed back to their homes. It was such a fun weekend and so good to see my friends and catch up. I wish we could do it more often. We sure did miss Lauren, Melanie and Crissy! I'm looking forward to our next reunion girls!