The Pumpkin Festival at Stone Mountain Park

[Pictures coming soon...]

This Saturday for Jordan's birthday we went to the pumpkin festival at Stone Mountain Park. It was me, Stephen and Sarah, plus Grandma, Aunt Becky, Uncle Matt and cousins Jordan and Jennifer. It was very fun! We met around lunchtime and had a picnic lunch in one of the picnic areas. Then we headed to the Crossroads area for the festival. Jordan had fun on the zipline at Skyhike, but was too afraid to do the three-story skyhike. Plus, it took way too long- like 1.5 hours! We took some photos in the pumpkin patch and then went to the Big Barn, which is an interactive ball area for the kids. They had areas with slides and tunnels for the little kiddies (like Sarah). There are three levels, and on each level there are all sorts of things to do with these foam balls that are everywhere--you can sort them into tubes, you can shoot them out of guns, you can collect them in bags to throw at each other, and then there were these machines of all sorts that took the balls and did different things with them. Some of them worked like a dump truck, others sucked up the balls and then made them fall from the sky. It was very fun! Sarah had so much fun running around collecting balls into her bag. She also enjoyed climbing on and playing on the slides and crawling through the tunnels. At first I thought she would be afraid of the longer tunnels where she couldn't see the other end, but she wasn't at all! She would crawl right in and through the whole tunnel!

After the Barn, we decided to head back to the cars for some snacks and then went to the Antebellum plantation. Sarah crashed out in the car and slept the whole time we walked through the campus of the plantation. While we walked, Becky and I talked about how its been at least 15 years since I had visited Stone Mountain, and really not much had changed. At the plantation, we took some photos in front of a beautiful Dahlia garden, where some of the Dahlia's were bigger than dinner plates! So pretty.

After the plantation, we went back to the cars and drove to the Crossroads area for dinner. We ate at this restaurant called Mrs. Katie's Southern Cooking. This place has delicious warm yeast rolls that they throw to you, and you have to catch it to eat it. The funniest thing happened as we were eating our dinner--the table started to rise slowly. It was so subtle, but none of us could figure out what was going on! It was a trick table! We had quite a laugh as our plates rose up above our heads! Actually, the whole dining room was laughing at our table.

The last thing we did was ride the train. This was Sarah's first experience with a train. She was very interested in it each time we saw it pass, and we would all wave at the riders on the train. When it came out turn to ride, Sarah loved sitting on the cart and looking at the people and mountain go by. We waved each time we passed people walking. It was only about a 20 minute train ride. Jennifer almost fell asleep on the train she was so tired!

After the train, we decided not to stay for the laser show. The kids were totally worn out from all the walking and playing. Actually, the adults were too! Plus, we were reminded about the type of people that come to the laser show-its totally white trash! That much has not changed since visiting the show 15 years ago! In all, we had a really fun day and Jordan enjoyed his birthday.