ATLANTA, GA

Jaycie’s Bunny Hoppin’ News:

By: Jaycie Lillie

10/29/22 – Stone Mountain Park Pumpkin Festival:

Stone Mountain is HUGE! It’s hard to believe that it is one solid piece of granite! It’s the world’s largest single piece of exposed granite and wights over a trillion pounds and covers 583 acres. We rode a gondola to the top and walked around.

From the top with the Atlanta skyline in the distance:

From land looking at the side with the carving:

The Pumpkin festival was fun, too. Here is a video I made of our time there: https://youtu.be/_7PJLCZldE8

At the end they had a lightshow. They claimed it was the world’s largest pumpkin light show and they projected lasers onto the mountain with music. You can see some of it in my Youtube video.

10/31/22 – Coke & Halloween:

First, we visited World of Coca-Cola! I’m not a big soda fan but the Coca-Cola brand has other drinks like lemonade, Hi-C, Vitamin water, flavored teas, sweet tea, all kinds!

There was a tasting room with all of the fountain drinks we could try. Some are only offered in other countries!

After Coca-Cola World we headed to lunch to meet Brenda & Mike and then went onto Brenda’s House!

Brenda is my Abuela’s first cousin. (My Great Grandpa and her dad were brothers.) She had made all sorts of yummy treats for us! And we got to make some with her, too. We also made this Halloween Gingerbread house. Momma and I also put on my witch nails.

The boys played golf, pickle ball, and Mario Golf. [Boy things!] We then ate dinner and got on our Halloween costumes. I was a cute witch and Jett was a Fortnite skin.

We then went trick-or-treating around Brenda’s neighborhood. The houses were pretty far apart so we had to work for our candy. But some of the houses were giving out full candy bars so it was worth it!

We also saw some bats flying around which was cool! Overall, it was fun and we had a GREAT Halloween thanks to Brenda & Mike! [Thank you, again!]

Jett’s Wild Flight:

By: Jett Lillie

10/30/22 – Puttshack:

We met Mom’s boss at a restaurant/putt-putt golf place called Puttshack. We played one round of 9 holes and then ate lunch. The putt-putt was very cool, because your ball knows your score and if you make a hole-in-one! After we ate lunch we played 9 more holes and I made one hole -in-one! I had a lot of fun even though I didn’t win.

We got lots of good stuff from Mrs. Cris, like chocolates, cookies, and other stuff.

Yum yum and THANK YOU!

10/31/22 – Halloween:

We met our great cousin, Brenda (my grandma’s cousin) and Mike. I got to play golf and pickleball with Mike. I also taught him how to play Mario golf.

He also showed us old classic cars he is fixing up. We also went trick-or-treating with Brenda in her neighborhood. We got lots of candy and I even got a Sprite from one house!

We had a blast! Thank you to cousin Brenda & Mike!

Jules’ Journal:

By: Julianne Lillie

10/30/22 – Northpoint Church & Puttshack:

We made cinnamon roll ups for breakfast & then drove to Alpharetta, GA to attend Northpoint Church (Andy Stanley’s church).

It happened to be their “Fall Fest” Sunday and they had hot apple cider for everyone. Despite the dreary, rainy day, they also had a full-on carnival outside on their lawn and all the kids (& many adults, too) were all dressed up in their costumes! IT WAS PACKED! And it was fun to see all the different costumes!

Worship was great and Andy Stanley’s message was very good but I was missing my Cedarpoint home church. Today back home they celebrated 16 years! So part of my heart was longing to be celebrating with my people on our milestone.

Jett went to the North Street kids class and by the time we picked him up, everyone knew his name and all the adults were high fiving him, fist bumping him, and telling him “safe travels buddy!” I swear this kid makes friends so easily and quickly!

After church we headed into downtown Atlanta & met up with our friends, Greg & Cris Buscetto at Puttshack for some crazy fun mini golf! Greg is the CEO of CerpassRx and we’ve had the pleasure of working together for the past 7+ years. It was so good to hang out with them for the afternoon! I can’t believe I forgot to get a group photo of us all, but I did get some photos of these crazy mini golf holes.

I would describe Puttshack as Top Golf but for miniature golf. And the balls had a chip in them that was linked to each of us. So the computer system always knew our school and we had chances to win bonuses. It was so much fun! I somehow managed to pull out a win on the first game with 3 holes in one! We then ate some yummy flatbread pizzas & played another round. Greg & Jason tied for the win on the second game. We enjoyed catching them up on our adventures. And the kids were good at piping in their bits of the stories as well. As we were saying our goodbyes, they gave us some super yummy Halloween sweets, an adorable RV magnet (for my collection) and a whole case of very fine wine!

So this Halloween we got treats for kiddos & adults! We were so grateful and thankful for the thoughtful gifts and fun time spent with them! It was a GREAT day!

11/1/22 – MLK Day:

We were all dragging this morning from the super late Halloween night the day before. So we had a slower morning than usual, but eventually got our picnic packed and all out the door. It was probably better this way as we avoided the 8 o’clock rush hour traffic into Atlanta. We arrived to the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park and kids got right to work on their Jr. Ranger booklets.

We then watched the 30 minute park video & learned all about his life. After that we had a picnic in a grassy area outside a public playground. Right after we got our quilt laid out and food divvied up we realized that the public park was used by the neighboring elementary school for recess. So within minutes we were swarmed with elementary kids on all sides. We clearly were in their football field… but they managed to play around us. Jett joined in on the playground fun for a little bit.

After lunch (& recess!) we headed back in to report for our house tour time. We attended a ranger led house tour of MLK’s childhood home from birth to age 12.

We got to see the room where he and his brother & sister were born (with a midwife). Unfortunately we were unable to take photos or videos as there were many personal affects & family photos all around. We learned that MLK loved to play Chinese Checkers and Monopoly. And that actually Monopoly was not the first name of that game… first name was “The Landlord’s Game.” I thought that was interesting!

After the house tour we walked through his memorial along the reflecting pool and saw where he and his wife are buried. It was a beautifully constructed memorial!

We also got to see the original Ebenezer Baptist Church building where Dr. King and his father co-pastored.

And strolled through the beautiful rose garden – this was Jaycie’s favorite!

Lastly, the kids earned their 57th Jr. Ranger badge along with another girl. She was 16 & was earning her 186th badge! WOW!

Her family also homeschools and lives in their RV fulltime. They just stayed a stent in Alaska & explored Denali National Park. It was nice to meet another family like us and exchange some adventure stories!