Visiting Stone Mountain

 I hope you had a great Labor Day weekend!  For the holiday, we went with our good friends to stay at Stone Mountain, GA.  It's a beautiful park (although some parts are very touristy) with a lot of family activities.  We arrived one afternoon and after lunch, we visited the Antebellum Plantation, which is actually a collection of older buildings from the state of GA.  This is the one time there I lugged my big camera around.  I thought you might enjoy seeing a few of the pictures I took while there... I know you love old houses and buildings like this as much as I do.  ;-)   

The above home was my favorite.  It's named the Kingston House, circa 1845, of the late Federal period.  The top floor consisted of living, dining, and bedrooms and the bottom floor the kitchen. 

 When I first walked in, I turned to Justus and said, "This is why I live in an old house!"  Sometimes I find it easy to get bogged down by the never-ending projects and the imperfections, instead of embracing the sweet character of an old home.  It felt good to be reminded of the reasons I love our old house.

White and wood, I will never tire of you...

 I loved the logs on this Doctor's Cabin.  We read that the logs are locked into place, making the corners of the cabin strong enough to withstand tornadoes! 

 This is the Dickey House, circa 1840, of neoclassical architecture, which was fascinating to tour.  It has 14 rooms with 6250 square feet and was lived in by descendants of the family until the 1960s!   I think we read that it traveled to this location in four different pieces! 

 An arched hallway, so beautiful. 

 The fabric in this master bedroom was gorgeous. This wool coverlet was woven in 1836!

 Probably my favorite place to visit here was this dahlia garden!  Dahlias are my favorite flower and I could hardly take in how plentiful and large these plants were... I was completely envious, since my mom and I grow dahlias in our own flower garden and our plants aren't anywhere as tall as these!  ;-) 

 I wanted to climb into this garden and pick every one of these beauties! 

 This was the plantation office, although it looks like a building I would gladly make my home!

The favorite building of our girls was the one room schoolhouse (circa 1875) and they had a lot of fun playing here and pretending they were the teacher.  Despite the heat, I think they could have played here for hours!  

I think some of the same things that fascinate my girls about an earlier time period are the same things that fascinate me.  Imagining what life must have been like and the people that would have walked and lived in these same rooms.  Right now we're reading the Little House books, and it makes me laugh because I love reading those old stories just as much as my girls do! 

I took this picture of the three girls together in the formal garden.  What a fun weekend we had... we packed in quite a bit, visiting many of the attractions at Stone Mountain. 

I took this picture on my cell phone, so it's not the best quality, but you can see the Confederate Memorial carving in the mountain.   

 Here we are on the top of the mountain, after riding up on the sky-ride.  You can just about see all the way to Atlanta from here!  Some of the other highlights were a train ride, and the laser and fireworks show one night, but I think more than anything, we just enjoying spending time together.  Still, as fun as vacations are, I don't think there is anything quite like home, sweet home. :-)