Callaway Gardens
Pine Mountain, GeorgiaAugust 29 - September 2, 2024
 Jay plus Robert and his family plus Karen and her family were again blessed to be able to spend the Labor Day weekend together at Callaway Gardens. This year, we wanted to extend our activities time at the resort, so Karen along with her family and Jay, drove up on Thursday night. We again had a four bedroom villa and Callaway Gardens provided two Pack 'n Plays and two high chairs for Alice and Thatcher, which was nice.
Overall our two-story, four bedroom villa was very, very nice with plenty of get-together space. The bedrooms were fairly large, each having a full bath with a double vanity, Robert's contribution as chef extraordinaire cannot be overstated. Robert was the center of all cooked meals (his breakfasts were great) and he led the cleanup operation for each meal. Yes, others helped, especially Karen for packing the lunch meals, thanks to both!!
Also, more than nice: Robert and Natalie did a ton of shopping beforehand and drove the food up to the resort by car. This included snacks, juices, sodas, dozens of breakfast eggs, packages of breakfast snacks, a cow's worth of bacon, pancake mix, loaves of bread, a large variety of lunch meats, items for Jay's clam dip, and a whole lot of dressings and other condiments. That had to have been a lot of work. During the stay the food items purchased by Robert and Natalie covered the breakfasts and lunches, and also some snacks.
The 8-passenger golf carts were wonderful as always. The Golf Shop let us check them out the night of our arrival, which was nice of them to do so. For this visit we again reserved and rented two, six–passenger golf carts, as we have done before. Staying at the resort and driving around on golf carts adds a whole new and very entertaining dimension to the vacation. Traveling around the various roads and trails of Callaway Gardens in a golf cart is a sweet experience. This September Braden had his license so he could join Daylin and Skyler as cart drivers. And we know that Benjamin can't wait to get his license.
On the first night, it was decided that rather than fix spaghetti, a better solution would be just order out. However, the moral of the story is to not let Karen order when she's hungry because we still had remnants of that first meal (ribs and pulled pork) in the refrigerator when we departed four days later.
After dinner we rode in our golf carts to the beach, where - in the last hours of daylight - we played BucketBall, a game that PaPa B had "created" and brought up to add to the fun. We divided into two teams and each team had a set of tennis balls. The game required teams to get a ball into each of "their" buckets, at which point that bucket would be removed; and with the team removing all its buckets first being the winner. Everyone had a great time, though some wondered how PaPa B was handling the chaos that was supposed to be a game with rules.
Friday morning was the 11AM Birds of Prey Show, allegedly Papa B's favorite activity at Callaway. It was good even if it was pretty hot in temperature. Yep, hot, but - as always - enjoyable. 
Following the Birds of Prey show, we gathered at the playground where we played on the equipment and ate our lunch meal: A variety of sandwiches made early that morning by Robert and Karen. We had signed up our "TreeTops" adventurers and were waiting for their appointed start time.
Soon it was time; Charlie and Luke would be mastering the Discovery Course and the older kids would be the high flyers. This time the older kids again added the "Water Course" as a follow-on, and everyone really liked to 400' and 500' and 700' zip lines across and back Robin Lake.
As always, the balloons were terrific, especially in the evening when they fired up in tune with the music. 
On that second night, Robert, Karen, and crew made spaghetti, and plenty of it. It was very tasty, and provided for lunches and snacks in the next few days.
As with 2023, hunting for golf balls was really fun. Callaway Gardens has two 18-hole courses and there are roads along the course for cars and golf carts. Around twilight, the courses would be free of golfers, so Jay would stop the carts and invite everyone to go golf ball hunting. Of course this activity would have been seriously frowned upon by the Callaway Security people.
The last night of golf ball hunting was Sunday night after the golf carts had been turned in and the crew was on its way back to the villa by car. By now it was pretty dark, but as we began our trip back to the villas, the kids asked for just one more chance to hunt golf balls using the flashlights they had brought.
On that second night, Robert, Karen, and crew made spaghetti, and plenty of it. It was very tasty, and provided in the next few days for lunches and snacks.
Breakfast at the villa and hanging out at the villa:  (This must have been the late breakfast for those who slept in.)
For Saturday and Sunday nights, we ordered carry-out from neighboring Pine Mountain food establishments, and we also grabbed some snacks at the Robin Lake vendors.
No worries about entertaining Thatcher in the villa. He loved playing with the wooden train set. 
But there were lots of other games for Alice and Thatcher. 
Many nights we played the card game "31."
The beach area, on Robin Lake, was fun, especially when it was combined with a visit to Aqua Island, which was a sure favorite. Sunday was "Beach Day." We arrived around 11:30 and, by ignoring some traffic signs, found a good parking spot for our golf carts. 
Aqua Island was as fun as ever. Lots of challenges available to be conquered. The Braden-Alvarez Clan played a spirited game of tag with the common "no tag back" rule and one other: If a player slips into the water while trying not to be tagged, that person becomes "IT."
We made a couple of visits to the villa pool. Fun as always. Karen's water balls were a "hit" in more ways than one.
Ida Cason Callaway Memorial Chapel Nestled in a serene forest surrounding Falls Creek Lake, the Ida Cason Callaway Memorial Chapel was carefully planned by Cason Callaway himself as a tribute to his mother. Inspired by 16th-century Gothic chapels, it is highlighted by a variety of materials native to the region, including fieldstone quartz. Beautifully crafted stained glass windows depict Georgia pines, softwoods, and hardwoods, coming to life in vibrant colors as the four seasons progress. The majestic sounds of the chapel's custom-built Möller pipe organ ring out during seasonal concerts. Today, the chapel is used for small weddings as well as organ concerts that are held each weekend – Saturday and Sunday afternoon, 1pm until 3pm. Concerts are drop-in and included in Gardens admission. Don’t miss this special place of serenity and inspiration.
We had some activities with no pictures:
Monday morning we packed up, got our group photos, and headed home with lots of good memories of fun family time together.
A few comments and thoughts for the future. Please do not allow all or even any one of these comments to take away from the fact that we had another wonderful time
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We gave them permission with the admonition that they were not to stray too far away and to maintain contact by cell phone. So there we are, parked with lights on and engine running, when one of the Callaway Security vehicles drives up and informs us that this road will soon be closed for the night, so maybe we better move along. We say something like "Yes, Sir," and as the security vehicle pulls away, we're on the cell phone, trying to recover the boys. Well, we do have contact with him, but they say they have found a trove of golf balls, and can they have just an extra minute or so. Which turns out to be closer to four or five minutes and we’re getting very nervous about another security vehicle pulling up and wanting to know why we haven’t moved after we have been strongly encouraged to do so, and we don’t want to tell them that we're waiting for boys to come back after hunting golf balls. But the boys come back, we gather them up and begin the travel back to the villa, where the boys are so excited about how many golf balls they have found; probably at least 50. That's pretty impressive but when we get to a point where there's light and we can see the balls, we observe that almost all of them are practice balls. Without an understanding of how golf courses are laid out, they had wandered onto the Driving Range, and collected a bunch of balls that were not good for anything.
