Callaway Gardens Getaway

Warning... longest post ever.

My friend, Lindsey, found this great deal on travelzoo for a place called Callaway Gardens, which is in South Georgia, right next to Alabama. The deal was for two nights at the resort plus canoe rental, bike rental, an hour of tennis time, and a zipline ropes course thing all for only $179. She kept talking about it and how she wanted to swap with another couple watching each other's kids. We already had a few little family vacations planned, so I wasn't really too interested at first, but then when she told me the deal and I thought about getting away with just Jeff for the weekend, we decided to make it work! 

Trying to find the weekends to swap was kind of hard, because we all had different, busy schedules, and there were also black out dates for the voucher. I had decided I wanted it to be a surprise for Jeff so that made the scheduling even harder. We had Father's Day weekend set, so I bought the voucher and then Jeff came home one day and said he had to work a football camp and he had to leave on the morning of Father's Day and be gone for 4 days. He already had a ton of other football or basketball stuff on every other available weekend so I was so frustrated. He got paid extra for the camp though, so I wanted him to do that still. I decided I would contact Jeff's boss (the Head Football Coach and Athletic Director). I got his email and told him the situation and told him how it had been since before Cheyenne was born that we had ever been able to spend the night away from our kids alone together (that is almost 4 years). He was super nice about it and said it was no problem for Jeff to miss Thursday weightlifting and 7 on 7 game. I was so nervous that Jeff would be mad about missing the 7 on 7 game. He is the qb coach and they have a new quarterback and Jeff was supposed to be calling the plays, etc. Anyway, so I packed all the girls stuff up and all of Jeff and my stuff up and loaded it the night before (Wednesday). I had it all in the trunk and I was worried Jeff would look in there (especially when he couldn't find his shoes and a couple of other things I had already packed), so I hid the keys for the car and pretended like I had no idea what he was talking about when he was looking for the things I had already packed! It was pretty funny, I think he thought he was going crazy not being able to find anything. I had to prep Cheyenne for spending the night away from us, so I got her excited about spending the night with her friends, Brielle and Savannah. I told her not to tell Daddy and she did a pretty good job, except the night before she said "I am going to stay the night at Brielle's house." Jeff was like, "What is she talking about? She keeps talking about that?" I was like, "Oh she got to spend the night at Layla's house and the Nelson's house so she is probably just wishing she could stay at Brielle's too." 

In the morning, I woke up early and got all dressed up. Then I went to get Jeff. I said, "Wake up and put your suit on, you aren't going to football today." He was so confused. He said, "What?" I told him I already talked to Coach Fritts and he didn't have to go. He asked me a few times if I was sure that Coach Fritts knew and if I was sure he remembered. He put his suit on and then I got the girls ready and we took them to the Watne's to stay. The girls were all super excited which made it easier to leave. We went to Wal-Mart and got some breakfast foods and chips. Then we hit the road. Jeff saw our temple bags in the trunk so he knew we were going to the temple, but I wouldn't tell him where we were going after. He was guessing places like the waterslides in Atlanta or the beach. It was funny watching him try to figure out where we were going, because I knew he didn't even know this place existed, so I knew he would never guess it. We did a session at the temple and then went to Outback for lunch. It was perfect because I got to use my gift card I got for coaching. At lunch I told him where we were going, just because I didn't want him to think it was somewhere like the florida gulf coast in a five star resort and then be disappointed when we got there. When we finally got there, we pulled up to a hotel, and we have this thing we always find the junkiest hotels and be like, "Oh look there is our hotel." We were joking and said that.... but it actually was! We were so nervous looking at the outside, but once we went inside the lobby it was awesome. It was this older building, but inside was nice (still old, but nice) and it had a lot of Southern Charm. The rooms were clean and nice and ours was right by the pool! 

It was kind of crazy trying to fit everything we wanted to do in, because there was so much to do! When we got there we were so tired and it was pouring rain, so we took a nap. Then we went to eat at this little Mexican place called San Marcos. Every place we went to eat, the food was awesome! That is one of my pet peeves about touristy places is that the food is usually crappy and overpriced and you still leave hungry, but this was not the case! We ordered fajitas which were amazing and then Jeff told them it was my birthday (in Spanish, so I had no idea). All the little mexican guys came and sang to me and put this giant sombrero on my head. We also got fried ice cream which was sooooo good! 

The next morning we woke up early and ate our little breakfast we packed. Then we rented the bikes and rode around for 2 hours... here is where the pictures start. We rode past the beautiful golf course and then to the lake to check it out:

They had ping pong tables at the beach so we stopped and played best out of 5, and I just have to document that I won all 3 because I am really competitive and sometimes I get frustrated that I can never beat Jeff in any sport, so that is why I love ping pong! When we dated we used to play all the time and we had super competitive matches. He does beat me a lot in ping pong too, so this was a great day for me! I grew up with a ping pong table in my basement trying for hours and hours to beat my mom, and he had one too, so we just like ping pong:) Anyway... the trails were super confusing and the map sucked so we barely made it back in time to return our bike rentals! After that we grabbed subway for lunch and ate it by the pool with the chips we had got at the store. I also bought some peaches at a stand on the side of the road and they were amazing! We laid by the pool in the sun and took naps! It was amazing! That is what I miss about my pre kid life is being able to sleep when I go to the pool or not have to make sure someone isn't drowning. Then we drove over to the lake to swim there. It was so beautiful. After swimming and laying out by the lake, they had set up a little farmer's market, so we walked around there.

Then we headed over to the canoes. I was really worried with the travel vouchers that this place would be super crowded but it wasn't at all. We got in our canoe and we were planning on swimming out of the canoe, but they told us it wasn't allowed and people had tipped the canoe before trying to get back in, so we decided we better not risk it. Plus this was a different lake than the one we had swam at and it was for fishing and he said there were fishing lines you could get caught up in.

So we just paddled as far and as hard as we could, then relaxed, and soaked up more sun:)

It was so cute where they stored the canoes, it reminded me of the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, but obviously not so fancy. After the canoes, we went into town to find something to eat. We found this cute little Southern looking 50's ish diner. It was called 27th street grill or something and it looked like it used to be a gas station. We ordered something called Darrell's cheeseburgers to go. It was the biggest burger ever and pretty much amazing. It had jalepenos on it and like 10 different kinds of cheeses. We took it over to where the Florida State trapeze team performs and we were the first ones there so we got the best seats! We ate our burgers on the bleachers while we waited for the show to start.
The show was AMAZING!! I love anything that has to do with gymnastics and it was like a little circus type thing. It was so sweet! They had flying trapeze, regular trapeze, tightrope and all sorts of acts. Here are some pics before the show:

During the show:

This was hilarious... they called a volunteer up from the audience. They chose this guy. They had another guy out there and also this girl who was his assistant. They said he was the world champion knife thrower. I totally believed them, because they had all sorts of crazy talented people. Anyway, they put the guy against this board with his hands tied down. They told him they would blindfold him for his safety, my stomach was so nervous, I couldn't believe they were going to throw a knife at this guy. All of the sudden after he is blindfolded, he hands the knife to his assistant, the announcer says "1,2,3!"  and she just sticks it in the board, right next to his head. It was the funniest thing ever, she takes off his blindfold and he looks at the knife and he was freaking out, he totally thought he was getting knives thrown at him. They proceed to do it to the other side of his head, and then they blindfold the knife thrower and he throws it between his legs. The guy was totally freaking out and when he walked by us back to his seat he was all sweaty and looked totally relieved. Jeff and I laughed sooo hard and it was by far the best part of the already amazing show! I wish I would have video taped the whole thing. It was awesome.

After the FSU circus show, we headed over and played an hour of tennis under the lights on a clay court where you can see where the ball hits. It was so cool! It really was my weekend because I won at tennis too! To Jeff's defense he had a really sore neck, but tennis is another sport we can compete pretty evenly in. The next day we were soooo tired, so we were so close to sleeping through our tree top mountain adventure appointment. Luckily the pillows were too fluffy, so our necks hurt and we decided we wouldn't get much rest in bed anyway. We made it to the course and we were so so glad we came! This was by far the most fun part of the trip! I was so nervous at first and then after a few little stations, I felt so comfortable, it was so much fun! I happened to be standing in the perfect spot when we started and we got to go first, which was awesome, because we could go as fast as we wanted. We were like 8 stations in front of everyone else, so we felt like we were the only ones there. The guides just kind of stand on the bottom and check up on everyone and make sure you are doing it right. So fun!

On the way out of town we got waffle cones at this cute little cafe and they were also amazing. It was the best trip and we kept saying it felt like we were on our honeymoon again! It was so great to just be able to focus on each other and have fun together without having other responsibilities to tend to. On the way home we stopped at our favorite Red Robin for a late lunch/early dinner. I got my free birthday burger- Whiskey River BBQ chicken burger of course... can't go wrong there! I of course got sang to and the free ice cream again, even though I had just eaten ice cream like 3 hours earlier... needless to say, I was really full! Then we walked around some shops and headed home to get the girls. It was so nice to not have to worry about our girls while we were gone! Cheyenne and Berkeley really love Brielle and "Baby Hannah" (Savannah). So they didn't even want to leave when we picked them up. Hopefully we can do another trip again, hopefully we don't wait 4 years this time.