Atlanta, Final Day

Even though Madeleine is saying things like this to me: "Mommy?  Can we go home to our RED HOUSE?  Because...I'm getting TIRED of being on vacation," she is clearly loving the whole experience of being at our hotel.  From pressing the elevator buttons to imitating the automated elevator announcer voice to sprinting down the hall on our floor to be the Camp Champ and arrive first at our door, it's a barrel full of entertainment here at the Georgian Terrace.  In fact, she and Julia both enjoy mimicking the elevator announcer, much to the amusement of the other elevator passengers, especially since they've got both the inflection and the posh accent down pat.

Today's big activity was a trip to Stone Mountain, where we got to ride a tram up to the top of the mountain and hang out enjoying the beautiful weather and scenery.  It took the girls a few minutes to get over their total freaking-out fear that they were going to fall off the top of the mountain, but once they realized that they could actually walk around without risk of pitching off a cliff's edge, they were up for exploring.

Their budding courage gave us the opportunity to take some family photos, as well as allowed the girls to do weird things like lay down for a "nap" in one of the rock crevices:

One of the highlights of the experience, for Madeleine, was that we all got to wear wristbands that allowed us access to all of the park's adventures, including mini-golf, play areas, and a train ride around the mountain.  Just for clarification: Madeleine was not actually ALL that interested in the actual activities for which the wristband granted us access.  She was excited about the wristband itself, to the point that she and I got leagues behind Ethan and Julia as we walked towards the tram, all because Madeleine was ackmiring her band so fully.

MADELEINE: (taking one snail-paced step and stopping to twirl her arm around, then another snail-paced step, then more arm-twirling) Mom!  It's PURPLE and WHITE and BLACK!
ME: Yeah, honey, we're WAY behind Julia and Daddy.  Can you pick up the pace here?
MADELEINE: (twirling her arm around) It's so BEAUTIFUL!

She's right about that.  Look at how gorgeous this thing is:

Later on in the day, the wristband became her watch, which she consulted in order to give us important updates about what we were supposed to be doing.  "Mommy?  My watch says it's NINETY-THREE, so that means it's time to go back to the HOTEL."

We had to ignore the late time of ninety-three o'clock, however, because we wanted to ride the train around the mountain before we left.  The kids couldn't have been more invested in the whole scenic view thing if they'd tried.  Julia spent the whole time trying to play "20 Questions" with Ethan, shouting out questions to him as he attempted to snap pictures of the view with his phone camera, while Madeleine decided to stare straight ahead at the rows of passengers in front of us and bellow out the theme music to "Barbie and the Twelve Dancing Princesses."

ME: Madeleine, look, do you see the mountain?
MADELEINE: Ahh ah ahhh, ah ahhh ah ahhh!  Ahhhhhahhhhhhhahhhhhhaaaaahhhhhhh!

It was totally worth staying past ninety-three o-clock to ride that train, let me tell you.

The *real* deciding factor on when to leave was Madeleine's exhausted, sleep-deprived, overstimulated-on-vacation melt-down, which occurred all because of her wristband watch.  We took a trip to the restrooms, and as I washed her hands, she became concerned with her watch getting wet.

MADELEINE: Mommy!  Wait!  Can you take off my watch so it doesn't get WET?
ME: I can't take it off, honey, but I'll try not to get it wet.

And then.  I splashed some water on the wristband as I rubbed her hands together under the faucet.

And she could not recover.

So we headed to the car, with Ethan carrying a sobbing Madeleine, and as I had expected, a few minutes into the car ride I looked back to see this:

Tonight we're planning on a low-key dinner and - hopefully - an early bedtime for the girls, as we get ready for our travels tomorrow.  I've gotta say, I'm with Julia here - I wish it was still Sunday, like LAST Sunday, like the day after we got here, because I'm not ready for vacation to end!!