Scavenger Hunt

A few weekends ago Josh totally blew me away! We had not been away for any extended period of time since Luke was born almost 3 years ago! 

We had returned from Destin earlier that week. And we got back the day before I had to be back at work for pre-planning. I spent the next 3 days at pre-planning and that Friday when I went home for lunch I had a huge surprise waiting for me. One of the youth from Liberty was at our house and handed me an envelope. The envelope had a message with instructions about what to do. 

The first clue was an e-mail with a voice recorded message. Josh sounded SO serious on this message! It was hilarious. He told me to pack my bags and go to the place that offers "comfort and relief". It took me about 20 minutes to pack my bags and make sure I had everything. As I was packing I realized that Luke was actually home and Sarah was babysitting him (and would be babysitting him the whole time we were gone). Here's the car all packed:

I figured out that the place that offers comfort and relief was the Chiropractor. I headed there to get my next clue. The whole time I was on this scavenger hunt all I could think of was "I hope my principal knows that I'm going to be late coming back to school." (little did I know he had arranged this with my principal a month earlier and emailed him the night before verifying everything!). When I showed up at the Chiropractor I had another envelope waiting for me along with a gift certificate for a massage and a gift certificate to the Java Station. 

I can't remember exactly what the clue said to do but it basically told me to go to the Java Station and get lunch and a drink. 

**Funny story. While I was at each place Josh tried to get a picture of me going to or from. He was parked behind the Java Station with his camera and a police officer drove up and asked him what he was doing. Really?? I was so shocked that the police would be that perceptive to notice that, and it is hilarious that he was just trying to surprise his wife. Try explaining that to an officer.

After ordering lunch/drink I got another clue which told me to meet at Ebenezer. 

Once he got me to EBC he took a picture as I drove up. Clearly I was mortified ;)

He handed me directions and we were on our way! We ended up at a mountain resort in the mountains near Dahlonega. 

It was cute and really quaint. I never thought I'd enjoy being in a cabin as much as I did! 

Of course it helped that the cabin had a hot tub. inside. That was nice! It was such a great way to unwind after my first official week back at school. And it was such a fun adventure getting there!

We explored the gift shop and found out you could rent movies and games. We ended up renting monopoly and played until late into the night. It was just so fun to do what we wanted to do!

After we got all the pieces set up we realized that there were no dice. Yep- there's an app for that- except it took FOREVER to download since we were on the edge ;)

We played some rummy while we waited for the app to download. 

All in all it was a great time spent together! I thought this picture was hilarious. Josh's truck didn't exactly "fit" into the parking space. hehe.

The next morning we checked out and headed out to do some exploring. Right around the corner was Amicalola Falls. 

The views were absolutely breathtaking...

We decided to take the stairs down a trail to get a better view... except I wasn't exactly wearing proper footwear. (remember I packed in a hustle and we didn't know we were going here!)

oops. 

Those stairs were a killer. It was the mother of all stairs. 

It was intimidating to look up and see these... knowing what was ahead.

After we died survived the ascent up the stairs we headed to the visitor center where this plaque was. I thought it was cool that it was the starting point of the AT.

Of course no trip is complete without shopping, so we stopped into the Pottery Barn outlet in Dawsonville to do some perusing! It was so much fun to not be on anyone's schedule but ours! Thanks to Sarah and my mom for keeping little man!